









* 















I 



WESTWARD HO ! 

OK 

THE VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES OF 

51R-AMYA5 LEIGH, KNIGHT, 
or Bunnoucn, inthe countyof mvox, 

IN THE REIGN OF HER MOST GLORIOUS 
MAJESTY 

CJUEEN ELIZABETH 


“DUX FCEM1NA FACT l.” 

Motto of Hi e Armada Medals , 
1«5SS. 


TO 

THE RAJAH 5JR JAMES BR<WKE.K£& 

AMD 

GEORGE AUGUSTUS 5ELWYW,1U>. 

BISHOP OF WEWZMWWD 

This Book is Dedicated 

by one who Unknown to them) has no other 
method of expressing his adm'irat'ion ana. 
reverence for their characters* 

That type of Fngjish Virtee, at once mat?' 
tel ana Goaty, practical ana enthusiastic , 
prudent and ^elf~ sacrificing, which he has 
tried to depict in these pages, they have ex- 
hibited in a form even purer and more- 
heroic than that in which he has Brest 
and that in which it was exhibited by Hie* 
worthies whom Flizabeth, withowt distil* 
lion of rank or age, gathered roand her 
in the ever ^oriows wars of her great 
reign . 

February; i£55. 


c.ic 





♦ 


V 




4 
















V 




BY 

CHARLES 

KINGSLEY 

ILLUSTRATED 

BY 

THORNTON 
h OAKLEY 


- Philadelphia - ^ 

George W* cJacobs & Co 
Publishers 


Copyright, 1920 
George W. Jacobs & Company 



NOV 10 1920 


All rights reserved 
Printed in U.S. A. 


© 


Or* 


a 

£ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I. 

II. 

III. 


IV. 

Y. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIY. 

XY. 

XYI. 

XYII. 

XYIII. 


PACK 

How Mr. Oxenham Saw the White Bird .... 11 

How Amyas Came Home the First Time .... 28 

Of Two Gentlemen of Wales, and How They Hunted 
With the Hounds, and Yet Ban With the Deer . 58 

The Two Ways of Being Crossed in Love ... 75 

Clovelly Court in the Olden Time . . . .98 

The Coombes of the Far West 123 

The True and Tragical History of Mr. John Oxenham 
of Plymouth 131 

How the Noble Brotherhood of the Bose Was Founded 169 

How Amyas Kept His Christmas Day .... 185 

How the Mayor of Bideford Baited His Hook With 
His Own Flesh .217 

How Eustace Leigh Met the Pope’s Legate . . .227 

How Bideford Bridge Dined at Annery House . . 243 

How the Golden Hind Came Home Again . . . 268 

How Salvation Yeo Slew the King of the Gubbings . 277 

How Mr. John Brimblecombe Understood the Nature 
of an Oath 300 

The Most Chivalrous Adventure of the Good Ship 
“Bose” 311 

How They Came to Barbados, and Found No Men 
Therein , 327 

How They Took the Pearls at Margarita . . .333 


8 Westward Ho ! 

XIX. What Befell at La Guayra 344 

XX. Spanish Bloodhounds and English Mastiffs . . . 367 

XXI. How They Took the Communion Under the Tree at 

Higuerote 391 

XXII. The Inquisition in the Indies 407 

XXIII. The Banks of the Meta 411 

XXI Y. How Amy as Was Tempted of the Devil .... 426 

XX Y. How They Took the Gold-Train 446 

XXVI. How They Took the Great Galleon 470 

XXVII. How Salvation Yeo Found His Little Maid Again . 499 

XXVIII. How Amyas Came Home the Third Time .... 512 

XXIX. How the Virginian Fleet Was Stopped by the Queen’s 

Command 525 

XXX. How the Admiral John Hawkins Testified Against 

Croakers 549 

XXXI. The Great Armada 564 

XXXII. How Amyas Threw His Sword Into the Sea . . .581 

XXXIII. How Amyas Let the Apple Fall 599 





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Landing on the New World . 

. 

Cover Design 


Westward Ho ! . . 

. 

Lining Paper ' 


Charles Kingsley .... 

. 

. 


Treasure 

. 

Title Page 


Table of Contents .... 

. 

Head Piece 


Table of Contents .... 

. 

Tail Piece 


List of Illustrations 

. 

Head Piece 


List of Illustrations 

. 

Tail Piece 

PAGE 

Amyas Upon the Quay at Bideford 




Helmets and Halberds . 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter I 

. 27 ^ 

John Oxenham of South Tawton . 

. 

Tail Piece , Chapter II . 

. 57 

A Ship in the Queers Navy . 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter III . 

. 74 ; 

Ships of England .... 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter IV . 

. 97 

Sir Richard Grenvile y Kt. 

The Multitudinous Life of the Sea 

Tail Piece y Chapter V 

. 122" 

Flashed into Glory 




Helmets and Halberds . 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter VI . 

. 130 

Sir Richard and Amyas in the Garden 

. 

. 131 

Lions of England .... 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter VII . 

. 168 

A Spanish Galley .... 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter VIII 

. 184 

A Culverin 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter IX . 

. 216 

Ships of England .... 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter X . 

. 226 

Helmets and Halberds . 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter XI . 

. 242 

The Duel upon the Sands 

. 

. 

. 264 

Sir Walter Raleigh , Kt. 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter XII . 

. 267 

Elizabeth y Queen of England 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter XIII 

. 276 

Amyas Rode Out of Plymouth 

. 



. 278 

Soldiers of the Queen 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter XIV 

. 299 

Philip the Second y King of Spain . 

. 

Tail Piece y Chapter XV . 

. 310 


io Westward Ho ! 

Barbados Tail Piece , Chapter XVI . . 326 

A Ship in the Queen’s Navy . . . Tail Piece, Chapter XVII . . 332 

An Archer of the Upper Meta . . Tail Piece , Chapter XVIII . . 343 

Soldiers of the Queen .... Tail Piece, Chapter XIX . . . 366 ^ 

Through the White Cloud of Smoke 
the Musket-Balls and Cloth-yard 

Arrows Whistled 374 

The Sea Fight Tail Piece, Chapter XX . . . 390' 

The Forest Tail Piece, Chapter XXI . . 406^' 

Sir Francis Drake , Kt Tail Piece, Chapter XXII . . 410 

They Paddled up the Windless 

Reaches 416 

He Gazed upon that Fairy Vision 422 

A Cacique of the Upper Meta . . Tail Piece, Chapter XXIV . . 446 

The Gold Train 447 

The Voyages of Amyas Leigh . . Map 614 

Sir John Hawkins, Kt, . . . Tail Piece, Chapter XXVIII . . 624 

Soldiers of the Queen .... Tail Piece, Chapter XXIX . . 548 

A Warrior of Elizabeth . . . Tail Piece, Chapter XXX . . 563 

The Course of the Spanish Armada . Map 564 

The Ships are Fired, and in a Mo- 
ment More the Heaven is Red 

with Glare 573 

The Armada Tail Piece, Chapter XXXI . . 580 

“ Shame!” cried Amyas, Hurling 

his Sword Far into the Sea . 591 

The Storm Tail Piece, Chapter XXXII . . 598 

The End Tail Piece, Chapter XXXIII . . 604 

•k 4p 


WESTWARD HO ! 


Chapter *1* 

How Mr. Oxenham saw the White Bira.* 

“Tho hollow oak our palace is, 

Our heritage the sea. ,, 

All who have traveled through the delicious scenery of North 
Devon must needs know the little white town of Bideford, which slopes 
upward from its broad yidej-rivey paved with yellow sands, and many- 
arched old bridge where salmon wait for Autumn floods, toward the 
pleasant upland on the west. Above the town the hills close in, cush- 
ioned with deep oak woods, through which juts here and there a crag 
of fem-f ringed slate; below they lower, and open more and more in 
softly-rounded knolls, and fertile squares of red and green, till they 
sink into the wide expanse of fiTt^y flats, rich salt marshes, and rolling 
sand-hills, where Torridge joins her sister Taw, and both together 
flow quietly toward the broad surges of the bar, and the everlasting 
thunder of the long Atlantic swell. Pleasantly the old town stands 
there, beneath its soft Italian sky, fanned day and night by the fresh 
ocean breeze, which forbids alike the keen winter frosts, and the fierce 
thunder heats of the midland; and pleasantly it has stood there for 
now, perhaps, eight hundred years since the first Grenvil, cousin of 
the Conqueror, returning from the conquest of South Wales, drew 
round him trusty Saxon serfs, and free Norse rovers with their golden 
curls, and dark Silurian Britons from the Swansea shore, and all the 
mingled blood which still gives to the seaward folk of the next county 
their strength and intellect, and, even in these leveling days, their 
peculiar beauty of face and form. 

But at the time whereof I write, Bideford was not merely a pleasant 
country town, whose quay was haunted by a few coasting craft. It 
was one of the chief ports of England; it furnished seven ships to fight 
the Armada; even more than a century afterward, say the chroniclers, 


12 


Westward Ho *. 

“ it sent more vessels to the northern trade than any port in England, 
saving (strange juxtaposition!) London and Topsham,” and was the 
centre of a local civilization and enterprise, small perhaps compared 
with the vast efforts of the present day: but who dare despise the day 
of small things, if it has proved to be the dawn of mighty ones ? And 
it is to the sea-life and labor of Bideford, and Dartmouth, and Top- 
sham, and Plymouth (then a petty place), and many another little 
western town, that England owes the foundation of her naval and 
commercial glory. It was the men of Devon, the Drakes and Haw- 
kinses, Gilberts and Raleighs, Grenvils and Oxenhams, and a host 
more of “ forgotten worthies,” whom we shall learn one day to honor 
as they deserve, to whom she owes her commerce, her colonies, her very 
existence. For had they not first crippled, by their West Indian 
raids, the ill-gotten resources of the Spaniarch-and Ihen crushed his 
last huge effort in Britain* s Salamis, the glorious fight of 1588, what 
had we been by now, but a Popish appanage of a world-tyranny as 
cruel as heathen Rome itself, and far more devilish? 

It is in memory of these men, their voyages and their battles, their 
faith and their valor, their heroic lives and no less heroic deaths, that 
I write this book; and if now and then I shall seem to warm into a 
style somewhat too stilted and pompous, let me be excused for my 
subject’s sake, fit rather to have been sung than said, and to have pro- 
claimed to all true English hearts, not as a novel but as an epic (which 
some man may yet gird himself to write), the same great message 
which the songs of Troy, and the Persian wars, and the trophies of 
Marathon and Salamis, spoke to the hearts of all true Greeks of old. 

One bright summer’s afternoon, in the year of grace 1575, a tall and 
fair boy came lingering along Bideford quay, in his scholar’s gown, 
with satchel and slate in hand, watching wistfully the shipping and the 
sailors, till, just after he had passed the bottom of the High Street, 
he came opposite to one of the many taverns which looked out upon 
the river. In the open bay window sat merchants and gentlemen, 
discoursing over their afternoon’s draught of sack; and outside the 
door was gathered a group of sailors, listening earnestly to some one 
who stood in the midst. The boy, all alive for any sea-news, must 
needs go up to them, and take his place among the sailor-lads who 
were peeping and whispering under the elbows of the men; and so 
came in for the following speech, delivered in a loud bold voice, with a 
strong Devonshire accent, and a fair sprinkling of oaths. 



Amyas upon the quay at Bideford 





























f 








































NOV ! 0 1920 




CCI.K146143 


7 j 




TheWhiteBira >« 

“ If you don’t believe me, go and see, or stay here and grow all over 
blue mold. I tell you, as I am a gentleman, I saw it with these eyes, 
and so did Salvation Yeo there, through a window in the lower room; 
and we measured the heap, as I am a christened man, seventy foot 
long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silver bars, and each bar 
between a thirty and forty pound weight. And says Captain Drake: 
‘ There, my lads of Devon, I’ve brought you to the mouth of the 
world’s treasure-house, and it’s your own fault now if you don’t sweep 
it out as empty as a stock-fish.’ ” 

“ Why didn’t you bring some of they home, then, Mr. Oxenham? ” 

“ Why weren’t you there to help to carry them? We would have 
brought ’em away, safe enough, and young Drake and I had broke the 
door abroad already, but Captain Drake goes off in a dead faint; and 
when we came to look, he had a wound in his leg you might have laid 
three fingers in, and his boots were full of blood, and had been for an 
hour or more ; but the heart of him was that, that he never knew it till 
he dropped, and then his brother and I got him away to the boats, he 
kicking and struggling, and bidding us let him go on with the fight, 
though every step he took in the sand was in a pool of blood; and so 
we got off. And tell me, ye sons of shotten herrings, wasn’t it worth 
more to save him than the dirty silver? for silver we can get again, 
brave boys: there’s more fish in the sea than ever came out of it, and 
more silver in Nombre de Dios than would pave all the streets in the 
west country: but of such captains as Franky Drake, heaven never 
makes but one at a time; and if we lose him, good-bye to England’s 
luck, say I, and who don’t agree, let him choose his weapons, and I’m 
his man.” 

He who delivered this harangue was a tall and sturdy personage, 
with a florid black-bearded face, and bold restless dark eyes, who 
leaned, with crossed legs and arms akimbo, against the wall of the 
house; and seemed in the eyes of the schoolboy a very magnifico, some 
prince or duke at least. He was dressed (contrary to all sumptuary 
laws of the time) in a suit of crimson velvet, a little the worse, perhaps, 
for wear; by his side were a long Spanish rapier and a brace of daggers, 
gaudy enough about the hilts; his fingers sparkled with rings; he had 
two or three gold chains about his neck, and large earrings in his ears, 
behind one of which a red rose was stuck jauntily enough among the 
glossy black curls ; on his head was a broad velvet Spanish hat, in which 
instead of a feather was fastened with a great gold clasp a whole 
Quezal bird, whose gorgeous plumage of fretted golden-green shone 


14 


Westward Ho ! 

like one entire precious stone. As he finished his speech, he took off 
the said hat, and looking at the bird in it — 

“ Look ye, my lads, did you ever see such a fowl as that before? 
That’s the bird which the old Indian kings of Mexico let no one wear 
but their own selves; and therefore I wear it — I, John Oxenham of 
South Tawton, for a sign to all brave lads of Devon, that as the 
Spaniards are the masters of the Indians, we’re the masters of the 
Spaniards,” and he replaced his hat. 

A murmur of applause followed; but one hinted that he “ doubted 
the Spaniards were too many for them.” 

“ Too many? How many men did we take Nombre de Dios with? 
Seventy-three were we, and no more, when we sailed out of Plymouth 
Sound; and before we saw the Spanish Main half were ‘ gastados,’ 
used up, as the Dons say, with the scurvy ; and in Port Pheasant Cap- 
tain Rawse of Cawes fell in with us, and that gave us some thirty 
hands more; and with that handful, my lads, only fifty-three in all, 
we picked the lock of the new world! And whom did we lose but 
our trumpeter, who stood braying like an ass in the mi ddle of the 
square, instead of taking care of his neck like a Christian? I tell you, 
those Spaniards are rank cowards, as all bullies are. They pray to a 
woman, the idolatrous rascals! and no wonder they fight like women.” 

“ You’m right, Captain,” sang out a tall gaunt fellow who stood 
close to him; “ one westcountryman can fight two easterlings, and an 
easterling can beat three Dons any day. Eh! my lads of Devon? 

“For O! it’s the herrings and the good brown beef, 

And the cider and the cream so white ; 

O ! they are the making of the jolly Devon lads, 

For to play, and eke to fight/ ’ 

“ Come,” said Oxenham, “ come along! Who lists, who lists? who’ll 
make his fortune? 

“Oh, who will join, jolly mariners all? 

And who will join, says he, O ! 

To fill his pockets with the good red goold, 

By sailing on the sea, 0 ! ’ y 

“Who’ll list?” cried the gaunt man again; “now’s your time! 
We’ve got forty men to Plymouth now, ready to sail the minute we 
get back, and we want a dozen out of you Bideford men, and just a 
boy or two, and then we’m off and away, and make our fortunes, or 
go to heaven. 


The White Bira 

“Our bodies in the sea so deep, 

Our souls in heaven to rest ; 

Where valiant seamen, one and all, 

Hereafter shall be blest ! 7 ’ 

“ Now,” said Oxenham, “ you won’t let the Plymouth men say that 
the Bideford men daren’t follow them? North Devon against South, 
it is. Who’ll join? who’ll join? It is but a step of a way, after all, 
and sailing as smooth as a duck-pond as soon as you’re past Cape 
Finisterre. I’ll run a Cloyelly herring-boat there and back for a 
wager of twenty pound, and never ship a bucketful all the way. 
Who’ll join? Don’t think you’re buying a pig in a poke. I know 
the road, and Salvation Yeo, here, too, who was the gunner’s mate, as 
well as I do the narrow seas, and better. You ask him to show you 
the chart of it, now, and see if he don’t tell you over the ruttier as well 
as Drake himself.” 

On which the gaunt man pulled from under his arm a great white 
buffalo horn covered with rough etchings of land and sea, and held it 
up to the admiring ring. 

“ See here, boys all, and behold the pictur of the place, dra’ed out 
so natural as ever was life. I got mun from a Portingal, down to the 
Azores; and he’d pricked mun out, and pricked mun out, wheresoever 
he’d sailed, and whatsoever he’d seen. Take mun in your hands now, 
Simon Evans, take mun in your hands; look mun over, and I’ll 
warrant you’ll know the way in five minutes so well as ever a shark 
in the seas.” 

And the horn was passed from hand to hand, while Oxenham, who 
saw that his hearers were becoming moved, called through the open 
window for a great tankard of sack, and passed that from hand to 
hand, after the horn. 

The schoolboy, who had been devouring with eyes and ears all 
which passed, and had contrived by this time to edge himself into the 
inner ring, now stood face to face with the hero of the emerald crest, 
and got as many peeps as he could at the wonder. But when he saw 
the sailors, one after another, having turned it over a while, come 
forward and offer to join Mr. Oxenham, his soul burned within him 
for a nearer view of that wondrous horn, as magical in its effects as 
that of Tristrem, or the enchanter’s in Ariosto; and when the group 
had somewhat broken up, and Oxenham was going into the tavern 
with his recruits, he asked boldly for a nearer sight of the marvel, 
which was granted at once. 


16 


Westward Ho ‘ 

And now to his astonished gaze displayed themselves cities and 
harbors, dragons and elephants, whales which fought with sharks, 
plate ships of Spain, islands with apes and palm-trees, each with its 
name over-written, and here and there, “ Here is gold; ” and again, 
“ Much gold and silver; ” inserted most probably, as the words were 
in English, by the hands of Mr. Oxenham himself. Lingeringly and 
longingly the boy turned it round and round, and thought the owner 
of it more fortunate than Khan or Kaiser. Oh, if he could but possess 
that horn, what needed he on earth beside to make him blest ! 

“ I say, will you sell this? ” 

“ Yea, marry, or my own soul, if I can get the worth of it.” 

“ I want the horn, — I don’t want your soul; it’s somewhat of a 
stale sole, for ought I know; and there are plenty of fresh ones in 
the bay.” 

And therewith, after much fumbling, he pulled out a tester (the 
only one he had) , and asked if that would buy it. 

“ That! no, nor twenty of them.” 

The boy thought over what a good knight-errant would do in such 
case, and then answered, “ Tell you what: I’ll fight you for it.” 

“ Thank’ee, sir! ” 

“ Break the jackanapes’ head for him, Yeo,” said Oxenham. 

“ Call me jackanapes again, and I break yours, sir.” And the boy 
lifted his fist fiercely. 

Oxenham looked at him a minute smilingly. “ Tut ! tut ! my man, 
hit one of your own size, if you will, and spare little folk like me ! ” 

“ If I have a boy’s age, sir, I have a man’s fist. I shall be fifteen 
years old this month, and I know how to answer any one who in- 
sults me.” 

“ Fifteen, my young cockerel? you look liker twenty,” said Oxen- 
ham, with an admiring glance at the lad’s broad limbs, keen blue 
eyes, curling golden locks, and round honest face. “ Fifteen? If I 
had half a dozen such lads as you, I would make knights of them be- 
fore I died. Eh, Yeo? ” 

“ He’ll do,” said Yeo; “ he will make a brave gamecock in a year 
or two, if he dares ruffle up so early at a tough old hen-master like 
the Captain.” 

At which there was a general laugh, in which Oxenham joined as 
loudly as any, and then bade the lad tell him why he was so keen after 
the horn. 

“ Because,” said he, looking up boldly, “ I want to go to sea. I want 


The White Bircl n 

to see the Indies. I want to fight the Spaniards. Though I am a 
gentleman’s son, I’d a deal liever be a cabin-boy on board your ship.” 
And the lad, having hurried out his say fiercely enough, dropped his 
head again. 

“And you shall,” cried Oxenham, with a great oath, “ and take a 
galloon, and dine off carbonadoed Dons. Whose son are you, my 
gallant fellow? ” 

“ Mr. Leigh’s, of Burrough Court.” 

“ Bless his soul! I know him as well as I do the Eddystone, and 
his kitchen too. Who sups with him to-night? ” 

“ Sir Richard Grenvil.” 

“ Dick Grenvil? I did not know he was in town. Go home and 
tell your father John Oxenham will come and keep him company. 
There, off with you! I’ll make all straight with the good gentle- 
man, and you shall have your venture with me; and as for the horn, 
let him have the horn, Yeo, and I’ll give you a noble for it.” 

“Not a penny, noble Captain. If young master will take a poor 
mariner’s gift, there it is, for the sake of his love to the calling, and 
Heaven send him luck therein.” And the good fellow, with the im- 
pulsive generosity of a true sailor, thrust the horn into the boy’s 
hands, and walked away to escape thanks. 

“And now,” quoth Oxenham, “ my merry men all, make up your 
minds what mannered men you be minded to be before you take your 
bounties. I want none of your rascally lurching longshore vermin, 
who get five pounds out of this captain, and ten out of that, and let 
him sail without them after all, while they are stowed away under 
women’s mufflers, and in tavern cellars. If any man is of that humor, 
he had better to cut himself up, and salt himself down in a barrel for 
pork, before he meets me again; for by this light, let me catch him, 
be it seven years hence, and if I do not cut his throat upon the streets, 
it’s a pity ! But if any man will be true brother to me, true brother to 
him I’ll be, come wreck or prize, storm or calm, salt water or fresh, 
victuals or none, share and fare alike; and here’s my hand upon it, for 
every man and all; and so — 

“Westward ho! with a rumbelow, 

And hurra for the Spanish Main, 0 !” 

After which oration Mr. Oxenham swaggered into the tavern, fol- 
lowed by his new men; and the boy took his way homeward, nursing 
his precious horn, trembling between hope and fear, and blushing 


18 


Westward Ho ! 

with maidenly shame, and a half-sense of wrong-doing at having re- 
vealed suddenly to a stranger the darling wish which he had hidden 
from his father and mother ever since he was ten years old. 

Now this young gentleman, Amy as Leigh, though come of as good 
blood as any in Devon, and having lived all his life in what we should 
even now call the very best society, and being (on account of the 
valor, courtesy, and truly noble qualities which he showed forth in 
his most eventful life) chosen by me as the hero and center of this 
story, was not, saving for his good looks, by any means what would 
be called nowadays an “ interesting ” youth, still less a “ highly- 
educated ” one; for, with the exception of a little Latin, which had 
been driven into him by repeated blows, as if it had been a nail, he 
knew no books whatsoever, save his Bible, his Prayer-book, the old 
“ Mort d’ Arthur” of Caxton’s edition, which lay in the great bay 
window in the hall, and the translation of “ Las Casas’ History of 
the West Indies,” which lay beside it, lately done into English under 
the title of “ The Cruelties of the Spaniards.” He devoutly believed 
in fairies, whom he called pixies; and held that they changed babies, 
and made the mushroom rings on the downs to dance in. When he 
had warts or burns, he went to the white witch at Northam to charm 
them away; he thought that the sun moved round the earth, and that 
the moon had some kindred with a Cheshire cheese. He held that 
the swallows slept all the winter at the bottom of the horse-pond; 
talked, like Raleigh, Grenvil, and other low persons, with a broad 
Devonshire accent ; and was in many other respects so very ignorant a 
youth, that any pert monitor in a national school might have had 
a hearty laugh at him. Nevertheless, this ignorant young savage, 
“ vacant of the glorious gains ” of the nineteenth century, children’s 
literature and science made easy, and, worst of all, of those improved 
views of English history now current among our railway essay- 
ists, which consist in believing all persons, male and female, before 
the year 1688, and nearly all after it, to have been either hypocrites 
or fools, had learned certain things which he would hardly have 
been taught just now in any school in England; for his training 
had been that of the old Persians, “ to speak the truth and to draw 
the bow,” both of which savage virtues he had acquired to perfection, 
as well as the equally savage ones of enduring pain cheerfully, and of 
believing it to be the finest thing in the world to be a gentleman; by 
which word he had been taught to understand the careful habit of 
causing needless pain to no human being, poor or rich, and of taking 


TheWiteBira 19 

pride in giving up his own pleasure for the sake of those who were 
weaker than himself. Moreover, having been entrusted for the last 
year with the breaking of a colt, and the care of a cast of young hawks 
which his father had received from Lundy Isle, he had been profiting 
much by the means of those coarse and frivolous amusements, in 
perseverance, thoughtfulness, and the habit of keeping his temper; 
and though he had never had a single “ object lesson/’ or been taught 
to “ use his intellectual powers,” he knew the names and ways of 
every bird, and fish, and fly, and could read, as cunningly as the 
oldest sailor, the meaning of every drift of cloud which crossed the 
heavens. Lastly, he had been for some time past, on account of his 
extraordinary size and strength, undisputed cock of the school, and 
the most terrible fighter among all Bideford boys; in which brutal 
habit he took much delight, and contrived, strange as it may seem, to 
extract from it good, not only for himself but for others, doing justice 
among his schoolfellows with a heavy hand, and succoring the op- 
pressed and afflicted; so that he was the terror of all the sailor-lads, 
and the pride and stay of all the town’s boys and girls, and hardly 
considered that he had done his duty in his calling if he went home 
without beating a big lad for bullying a little one. For the rest, he 
never thought about thinking, or felt about feeling; and had no am- 
bition whatsoever beyond pleasing his father and mother, getting 
by honest means the maximum of “ red quarrenders ” and mazard 
cherries, and going to sea when he was big enough. Neither was he 
what would be nowadays called by many a pious child; for though he 
said his Creed and Lord’s Prayer night and morning, and went to the 
service at the church every forenoon, and read the day’s Psalms with 
his mother every evening, and had learned from her and from his 
father (as he proved well in after life) that it was infinitely noble 
to do right and infinitely base to do wrong, yet (the age of children’s 
religious books not having yet dawned on the world) , he knew noth- 
ing more of theology, or of his own soul, than is contained in the 
Church Catechism. It is a question, however, on the whole, whether, 
though grossly ignorant (according to our modern notions) in science 
and religion, he was altogether untrained in manhood, virtue, and 
godliness; and whether the barbaric narrowness of his information 
was not somewhat counterbalanced both in him and in the rest of his 
generation by the depth, and breadth, and healthiness of his education. 

So let us watch him up the hill as he goes hugging his horn, to tell 
all that has passed to his mother, from whom he had never hidden any- 


20 


Westward Ho ! 

thing in his life, save only that sea fever; and that only because he 
foreknew that it would give her pain; and because, moreover, being 
a prudent and sensible lad, he knew that he was not yet old enough 
to go, and that, as he expressed it to her that afternoon, “ there was 
no use hallooing till he was out of the wood.” 

So he goes up between the rich lane-banks, heavy with drooping 
ferns and honeysuckle; out upon the windy down toward the old 
Court, nestled amid its ring of wind-clipped oaks; through the gray 
gateway into the homeclose; and then he pauses a moment to look 
around; first at the wide bay to the westward, with its southern wall 
of purple cliffs; then at the dim Isle of Lundy far away at sea; then 
at the cliffs and downs of Morte and Braunton, right in front of him; 
then at the vast yellow sheet of rolling sand-hill, and green alluvial 
plain dotted with red cattle, at his feet, through which the silvery 
estuary winds onward toward the sea. Beneath him, on his right, 
the Torridge, like a land-locked lake, sleeps broad and bright between 
the old park of Tapeley and the charmed rock of Hubbastone, where, 
seven hundred years ago, the Norse rovers landed to lay siege to Ken- 
with Castle, a mile away on his left hand; and not three fields away, 
are the old stones of “ The Bloody Corner,” where the retreating 
Danes, cut off from their ships, made their last fruitless stand against 
the Saxon sheriff and the valiant men of Devon. Within that charmed 
rock, so Torridge boatmen tell, sleeps now the old Norse Viking in 
his leaden coffin, with all his fairy treasure and his crown of gold ; and 
as the boy looks at the spot, he fancies, and almost hopes, that the day 
may come when he shall have to do his duty against the invader as 
boldly as the men of Devon did then. And past him, far below, upon 
the soft southeastern breeze, the stately ships go sliding out to sea. 
When shall he sail in them, and see the wonders of the deep? And 
as he stands there with beating heart and kindling eye, the cool breeze 
whistling through his long fair curls, he is a symbol, though he knows 
it not, of brave young England longing to wing its way out of its 
island prison, to discover and to traffic, to colonize and to civilize, until 
no wind can sweep the earth which does not bear the echoes of an 
English voice. Patience, young Amyas! Thou too shalt forth, and 
westward ho, beyond thy wildest dreams; and see brave sights, and 
do brave deeds, which no man has since the foundation of the world. 
Thou, too, shalt face invaders stronger and more cruel far than Dane 
or Norman, and bear thy part in that great Titan strife before the 
renown of whichUTe name of Salamis shall fade away! 


TheWhiteBira a 

Mr. Oxenham came that evening to supper as he had promised: 
but as people supped in those days in much the same manner as they 
do now, we may drop the thread of the story for a few hours, and take 
it up again after supper is over. 

“ Come now, Dick Grenvil, do thou talk the good man round, and 
I’ll warrant myself to talk round the good wife.” 

The personage whom Oxenham addressed thus familiarly, answered 
by a somewhat sarcastic smile, and, “ Mr. Oxenham gives Dick Gren- 
vil ” (with just enough emphasis on the “ Mr.” and the “ Dick,” to 
hint that a liberty had been taken with him) “ overmuch credit with 
the men. Mr. Oxenham’s credit with fair ladies, none can doubt. 
Friend Leigh, is Heard’s great ship home yet from the Straits? ” 

The speaker, known well in those days as Sir Richard Grenvile, 
Granville, Greenvil, Greenfield, with two or three other variations, 
was one of those truly heroical personages whom Providence, fitting 
always the men to their age and their work, had sent upon the earth 
whereof it takes right good care, not in England only, but in Spain 
and Italy, in Germany and the Netherlands, and wherever, in short, 
great men and great deeds were needed to lift the mediaeval world into 
the modern. 

And, among all the heroic faces which the painters of that age have 
preserved, none, perhaps, hardly excepting Shakespeare’s or Spen- 
ser’s, Alva’s or Parma’s, is more heroic than that of Richard Grenvil, 
as it stands in Prince’s “Worthies of Devon”; of a Spanish type, 
perhaps (or more truly speaking, a Cornish), rather than an English, 
with just enough of the British element in it, to give delicacy to its 
massiveness. The forehead and whole brain are of extraordinary 
loftiness, and perfectly upright; the nose long, aquiline, and delicately 
pointed; the mouth fringed with a short silky beard, small and ripe, 
yet firm as granite, with just pout enough of the lower lip to give hint 
of that capacity of noble indignation which lay hid under its usual 
courtly calm and sweetness; if there be a defect in the face, it is that 
the eyes are somewhat small, and close together, and the eyebrows, 
though delicately arched, and, without a trace of peevishness, too 
closely pressed down upon them, the complexion is dark, the figure 
tall and graceful ; altogether the likeness of a wise and gallant gentle- 
man, lovely to all good men, awful to all bad men; in whose presence 
none dare say or do a mean or a ribald thing; whom brave men left, 
feeling themselves nerved to do their duty better, while cowards 
slipped away, as bats and owls before the sun. So he lived and moved. 


22 


Westward Ho ! 

whether in the court of Elizabeth, giving his counsel among the wisest; 
or in the streets of Bideford, capped alike by squire and merchant, 
shopkeeper and sailor; or riding along the moorland roads between his 
houses of Stow and Bideford, while every woman ran out to her door 
to look at the great Sir Richard, the pride of North Devon; or, sitting 
there in the low mullioned window at Burrough, with his cup of 
malmsey before him, and the lute to which he had just been singing 
laid across his knees, while the red western sun streamed in upon his 
high, bland forehead, and soft curling locks; ever the same steadfast, 
God-fearing, chivalrous man, conscious (as far as a soul so healthy 
could be conscious) of the pride of beauty, and strength, and valor, 
and wisdom, and a race and name which claimed direct descent from 
the grandfather of the Conqueror, and was tracked down the centuries 
by valiant deeds and noble benefits to his native shire, himself the 
noblest of his race. Men said that he was proud: but he could not 
look round him without having something to be proud of; that he 
was stern and harsh to his sailors: but it was only when he saw in 
them any taint of cowardice or falsehood; that he was subject, at 
moments, to such fearful fits of rage, that he had been seen to snatch 
the glasses from the table, grind them to pieces in his teeth, and 
swallow them: but that was only when his indignation had been 
aroused by some tale of cruelty or oppression; and, above all, by 
those West Indian devilries of the Spaniards, whom he regarded (and 
in those days rightly enough) as the enemies of God and man. Of 
this last fact Oxenham was well aware, and therefore felt somewhat 
puzzled and nettled, when, after having asked Mr. Leigh’s leave to 
take young Amyas with him, and set forth in glowing colors the 
purpose of his voyage, he found Sir Richard utterly unwilling to help 
him with his suit. 

“ Heyday, Sir Richard? You are not surely gone over to the side 
of those canting fellows (Spanish Jesuits in disguise every one of 
them, they are) , who pretend to turn up their noses at Franky Drake 
as a pirate, and be hanged to them? ” 

“ My friend Oxenham,” answered he, in the sententious and 
measured style of the day, “ I have always held, as you should know 
by this, that Mr. Drake’s booty, as well as my good friend Captain 
Hawkins’s, is lawful prize, as being taken from the Spaniard, who is 
not only ‘ hostis humani generis,’ but has no right to the same, having 
robbed it violently, by torture and extreme iniquity, from the poor 
Indian, whom God avenge, as He surely will.” 


The White Birii 28 

“Amen,” said Mrs. Leigh. 

I say Amen too,” quoth Oxenham, “ especially if it please Him 
to avenge them by English hands.” 

And I also , 5 went on Sir Richard; “ for the rightful owners of 
the said goods being either miserably dead, or incapable by reason 
of their servitude of ever recovering any share thereof, the treasure, 
falsely called Spanish, cannot be better bestowed than in building up 
the state of England against them, our natural enemies ; and thereby, 
in building up the weal of the Reformed Churches throughout the 
world, and the liberties of all nations, against a tyranny more foul and 
rapacious than that of Nero or Caligula; which if it be not the cause 
of God, I, for one, know not what God’s cause is!” And as he 
warmed in his speech, his eyes flashed very fire. 

“ Hark now! ” said Oxenham, “ who can speak more boldly than 
he? and yet he will not help this lad to so noble an adventure.” 

“ You have asked his father and mother; what is their answer? ” 

“ Mine is this,” said Mr. Leigh; “ if it be God’s will that my boy 
should become hereafter such a mariner as Sir Richard Grenvil, let 
him go, and God be with him ; but let him first bide here at home and 
be trained, if God give me grace, to become such a gentleman as Sir 
Richard Grenvil.” 

Sir Richard boAved low, and Mrs. Leigh catching up the last Avord — 

“ There, Mr. Oxenham, you cannot gainsay that, unless you Avill 
be discourteous to his worship. And for me — though it be a Aveak 
Avoman’s reason, yet it is a mother’s: he is my only child. His elder 
brother is far aAvay. God only knoAvs Avhether I shall see him again; 
and Avhat are all reports of his virtues and his learning to me, compared 
to that SAveet presence Avhich I daily miss? Ah! Mr. Oxenham, my 
beautiful Joseph is gone; and though he be lord of Pharaoh’s house- 
hold, yet he is far aAvay in Egypt; and you will take Benjamin also! 
Ah! Mr. Oxenham, you haA^e no child, or you would not ask for 
mine! ” 

“And hoAv do you knoAV that, my SAveet Madam? ” said the adven- 
turer, turning first deadly pale, and then glowing red. Her last 
Avords had touched him to the quick in some unexpected place; and 
rising, he courteously laid her hand to his lips, and said — “ I say no 
more. FareAvell, sweet Madam, and God send all men such Avives 
as you.” 

“ And all Avives,” said she, smiling, “ such husbands as mine.” 

“ Nay, I Avill not say that,” ansAvered he, Avith a half sneer — and 


24 


Westwara Ho ! 

then, “ Farewell, friend Leigh, Farewell, gallant Dick Grenvil. God 
send I see thee Lord High Admiral when I come home. And yet, 
why should I come home? Will you pray for poor Jack, gentles? ” 

“ Tut, tut, man! good words,” said Leigh; “let us drink to our 
merry meeting before you go.” And rising, and putting the tankard 
of malmsey to his lips, he passed it to Sir Richard, who rose, and 
saying, “ To the fortune of a bold mariner and a gallant gentleman,” 
drank, and put the cup into Oxenham’s hand. 

The adventurer’s face was flushed, and his eye wild. Whether 
from the liquor he had drunk during the day, or whether from Mrs. 
Leigh’s last speech, he had not been himself for a few minutes. He 
lifted the cup, and was in act to pledge them, when he suddenly 
dropped it on the table, and pointed, staring and trembling, up and 
down, and round the room, as if following some fluttering object. 

“There! Do you see it? The bird! — the bird with the white 
breast! ” 

Each looked at the other; but Leigh, who was a quick-witted man, 
and an old courtier, forced a laugh instantly, and cried — 

“Nonsense, brave Jack Oxenham! Leave white birds for men 
who will show the white feather. Mrs. Leigh waits to pledge 
you.” 

Oxenham recovered himself in a moment, pledged them all round, 
drinking deep and fiercely; and after hearty farewells, departed, never 
hinting again at his strange exclamation. 

After he was gone, and while Leigh was attending him to the door, 
Mrs. Leigh and Grenvil kept a few minutes’ dead silence. At last — 

“ God help him ! ” said she. 

“ Amen,” said Grenvil, “ for he never needed it more. But, indeed, 
Madam, I put no faith in such omens.” 

“ But, Sir Richard, that bird has been seen for generations before 
the death of any of his family. I know those who were at South 
Tawton when his mother died, and his brother also; and they both 
saw it. God help him! for, after all, he is a proper man.” 

“ So many a lady has thought before now, Mrs. Leigh, and well 
for him if they had not. But, indeed, I make no account of omens. 
When God is ready for each man, then he must go; and when can he 
go better? ” 

“ But,” said Mr. Leigh, who entered, “ I have seen, and especially 
when I was in Italy, omens and prophecies before now beget their own 
fulfilment, by driving men into recklessness, and making them run 


The White Bird 

headlong upon that very ruin which, as they fancied, was running 
upon them.” 

“And which,” said Sir Richard, “ they might have avoided, if, 
instead of trusting in I know not what dumb and dark destiny, they 
had trusted in the living God, by faith in whom men may remove 
mountains, and quench the fire, and put to flight the armies of the 
alien. I, too, know, and know not how I know, that I shall never die 
in my bed.” 

“ God forfend! ” cried Mrs. Leigh. 

“ And why, fair Madam, if I die doing my duty to my God and 
my queen? The thought never moves me: nay, to tell the truth, I 
pray often enough that I may be spared the miseries of imbecile old 
age, and that end which the old Northmen rightly called ‘ a cow’s 
death ’ rather than a man’s. But enough of this. Mr. Leigh, you 
have done wisely to-night. Poor Oxenham does not go on his voyage 
with a single eye. I have talked about him with Drake and Hawkins ; 
and I guess why Mrs. Leigh touched him so home when she told him 
that he had no child.” 

“ Has he one, then, in the West Indies? ” cried the good lady. 

“ God knows ; and God grant we may not hear of shame and sorrow 
fallen upon an ancient and honorable house of Devon. My brother 
Stukelv is woe enough to North Devon for this generation.” 

“ Poor braggadocio! ” said Mr. Leigh; “ and yet not altogether that 
too, for he can fight at least.” 

“ So can every mastiff and boar, much more an Englishman. And 
now come hither to me, my adventurous godson, and don’t look in such 
doleful dumps. I hear you have broken all the sailor boys’ heads 
already.” 

“ Nearly all,” said young Amyas, with due modesty. “ But am I 
not to go to sea? ” 

“All things in their time, my boy, and God forbid that either I or 
your worth}' parents should keep you from that noble calling which is 
the safeguard of this England and her queen. But you do not wish 
to live and die the master of a trawler? ” 

“ I should like to be a brave adventurer, like Mr. Oxenham.” 

“ God grant you become a braver man than he! for as I think, to 
be bold against the enemy is common to the brutes; but the prerogative 
of a man is to be bold against himself.” 

“ How, sir? ” 

“ To conquer our own fancies, Amyas, and our own lusts, and our 


26 


Westward Ho ! 

ambition, in the sacred name of duty; this it is to be truly brave, and 
truly strong; for he who cannot rule himself, how can he rule his crew 
or his fortunes? Come, now, I will make you a promise. If you will 
bide quietly at home, and learn from your father and mother all which 
befits a gentleman and a Christian, as well as a seaman, the day shall 
come when you shall sail with Richard Grenvil himself, or with better 
men than he, on a nobler errand than gold-hunting on the Spanish 
Main.” 

“ O my boy, my boy! ” said Mrs. Leigh, “ hear what the good Sir 
Richard promises you. Many an earl’s son would be glad to be in 
your place.” 

“And many an earl’s son will be glad to be in his place a score years 
hence, if he will but learn what I know you two can teach him. And 
now, Amyas, my lad, I will tell you for a warning the history of that 
Sir Thomas Stukely of whom I spoke just now, and who was, as all 
men know, a gallant and courtly knight, of an ancient and worshipful 
family in Ilfracombe, well practised in the wars, and well beloved at 
first by our incomparable queen, the friend of all true virtue, as I 
trust she will be of yours some day ; who wanted but one step to great- 
ness, and that was this, that, in his hurry to rule all the world, he forgot 
to rule himself. And first, he wasted his estate in show and luxury, 
always intending to be famous, and destroying his own fame all the 
while by his vainglory and haste. Then, to retrieve his losses, he hit 
upon the peopling of Florida, which thou and I will see done some 
day, by God’s blessing; for I and some good friends of mine have an 
errand there as well as he. But he did not go about it as a loyal man, 
to advance the honor of his queen, but his own honor only, dreaming 
that he, too, should be a king; and was not ashamed to tell her majesty, 
that he had rather be sovereign of a molehill than the highest subject 
of an emperor.” 

“ They say,” said Mr. Leigh, “ that he told her plainly he should be 
a prince before he died, and that she gave him one of her pretty quips 
in return.” 

“ I don’t know that her majesty had the best of it. A fool is many 
times too strong for a wise man, by virtue of his thick hide. For when 
she said that she hoped she should hear from him in his new princi- 
pality, 4 Yes, sooth,’ says he, graciously enough. 4 And in what style? ’ 
asks she. 4 To our dear sister,’ says Stukely: to which her clemency 
had nothing, to reply, but turned away, as Mr. Burleigh told me, 
laughing.” 


The WhiteBirci 27 

“Alas for him! ” said gentle Mrs. Leigh. “ Such self-conceit — and 
Heaven knows we have the root of it in ourselves also — is the very 
daughter of self-will, and of that loud crying out about I, and me, 
and mine, which is the very bird-call for all devils, and the broad road 
which leads to death.” 

“ It will lead him to his,” said Sir Richard; “ God grant it be not 
upon Tower-hill! for since that Florida plot, and after that his hopes 
of Irish preferment came to nought, he who could not help himself by 
fair means has taken to foul ones, and gone over to Italy to the Pope, 
whose infallibility has not been proof against Stukely’s wit; for he 
was soon his Holiness’s closet counsellor, and, they say, his bosom 
friend; and made him give credit to his boasts that, with three thou- 
sand soldiers he would beat the English out of Ireland, and make the 
Pope’s son king of it.” 

“Ay, but,” said Mr. Leigh, “ I suppose the Italians have the same 
fetch now as they had when I was there, to explain such ugly cases; 
namely, that the Pope is infallible only in doctrine, and quoad Pope; 
while quoad hominem, he is even as others, or indeed, in general, a deal 
worse, so that the office, and not the man, may be glorified thereby. 
But where is Stukely now? ” 

“At Rome when last I heard of him, ruffling it up and down the 
Vatican as Baron Ross, Viscount Murrough, Earl Wexford, Marquis 
Leinster, and a title or two more, which have cost the Pope little, 
seeing that they never were his to give; and plotting, they say, some 
hair-brained expedition against Ireland by the help of the Spanish 
king, which must end in nothing but his shame and ruin. And now, 
my sweet hosts, I must call for serving-boy and lantern, and home to 
my bed in Bideford.” 

And so Amyas Leigh went back to school, and Mr. Oxenham went 
his way to Plymouth again, and sailed for the Spanish Main. 



CHAPTER II. 

How Aiyas c&me'home the firsttim©. 

4 ‘ Si taeeant homines, f acient te sidera notum, 

Sol nescit comitis immemor esse sui.” 

Old Epigram on Drake . 

Five years are past and gone. It is nine of the clock on a still, 
bright November morning; but the bells of Bideford church are still 
ringing for the daily service two hours after the usual time; and 
instead of going soberly according to wont, cannot help breaking forth 
every five minutes into a jocund peal, and tumbling head over heels in 
ecstasies of joy. Bideford streets are a very flower garden of all the 
colors, swarming with seamen and burghers, and burghers’ wives and 
daughters, all in their holiday attire. Garlands are hung across the 
streets, and tapestries from every window. The ships in the pool 
are dressed in all their flags, and give tumultuous vent to their feelings 
by peals of ordnance of every size. Every stable is crammed with 
horses; and Sir Richard Grenvil’s house is like a very tavern, with 
eating and^ drinking, and unsaddling, and running to and fro of 
grooms and serving-men. Along the little churchyard, packed full 
with women, streams all the gentle blood of North Devon, — tall and 
stately men, and fair ladies, worthy of the days when the gentry of 
England were by due right the leaders of the people, by personal 
prowess and beauty, as well as by intellect and education. And first, 
there is my lady Countess of Bath, whom Sir Richard Grenvil is 
escorting, cap in hand (for her good Earl Bourchier is in London with 
the queen) ; and there are Bassets from beautiful Umberleigh, and 
Carys from more beautiful Clovelly, and Fortescues of Wear, and 
Fortescues of Buckland, and Fortescues from all quarters, and Coles 
from Slade, and Stukelys from Affton, and St. Legers from Annery, 
and Coffins from Portledge, and even Coplestones from Eggesford, 
thirty miles away: and last, but not least (for almost all stop to give 
them place) , Sir John Chichester of Ralegh, followed in single file, 
after the good old patriarchal fashion, by his eight daughters, and 
three of his five famous sons (one, to avenge his murdered brother, is 


29 


How Anyas e&me'b oroe 

fighting valiantly in Ireland, hereafter to rule there wisely also, as 
Lord-Deputy and Baron of Belfast) ; and he meets at the gate his 
cousin of Arlington, and behind him a train of four daughters and 
nineteen sons, the last of whom has not yet passed the Town-hall, 
while the first is at the Lychgate, who, laughing, make way for the 
elder though shorter branch of that most fruitful tree; and so on into 
the church, where all are placed according to their degrees, or at least 
as near as may be, not without a few sour looks, and shovings, and 
whisperings, from one high-born matron and another; till the church- 
wardens and sidesmen, who never had before so goodly a company to 
arrange, have bustled themselves hot and red, and frantic, and end by 
imploring abjectly the help of the great Sir Richard himself to tell 
them who everybody is, and which is the elder branch, and which 
is the younger, and who carries eight quarterings in their arms, and 
who only four, and so prevent their setting at deadly feud half the 
fine ladies of North Devon; for the old men are all safe packed away 
in the corporation pews, and the young ones care only to get a place 
whence they may eye the ladies. And at last there is a silence, and a 
looking toward the door, and then distant music, flutes and hautboys, 
drums and trumpets, which come braying, and screaming, and thun- 
dering merrily up to the very church doors, and then cease; and the 
churchwardens and sidesmen bustle down to the entrance, rods in 
hand, and there is a general whisper and rustle, not without glad tears 
and blessings from many a woman, and from some men also, as the 
wonder of the day enters, and the rector begins, not the morning 
service, but the good old thanksgiving after a victory at sea. 

And what is it which has thus sent old Bideford wild with that 
“ godly joy and pious mirth,” of which we now only retain traditions 
in our translation of the psalms? Why are all eyes fixed, with greedy 
admiration, on those four weather-beaten mariners, decked out with 
knots and ribbons by loving hands; and yet more on that gigantic 
figure who walks before them, a beardless boy, and yet with the frame 
and stature of a Hercules, towering, like Saul of old, a head and 
shoulders above all the congregation, with his golden locks flowing 
down over his shoulders? And why, as the five go instinctively up to 
the altar, and there fall on their knees before the rails, are all eyes 
turned to the pew, where Mrs. Leigh of Burrough has hid her face 
between her hands, and her hood rustles and shakes to her joyful sobs? 
Because there was fellow-feeling of old in merry England, in county 
and in town; and these are Devon men, and men of Bideford, whose 


so Westward H© ! 

names are Amyas Leigh of Burrough, John Staveley, Michael Heard, 
and Jonas Marshall of Bideford, and Thomas Braund of Clovelly: 
and they, the first of all English mariners, have sailed round the world 
with Francis Drake, and are come hither to give God thanks. 

It is a long story. To explain how it happened we must go back 
for a page or two, almost to the point from whence we started in the 
last Chapter. 

For somewhat more than a twelvemonth after Mr. Oxenham’s 
departure, young Amyas had gone on quietly enough, according to 
promise, with the exception of certain occasional outbursts of fierce- 
ness common to all young male animals, and especially to boys of any 
strength of character. His scholarship, indeed, progressed no better 
than before; but his home education went on healthily enough; and he 
was fast becoming, young as he was, a right good archer, and rider, 
and swordsman (after the old school of buckler practice) when, his 
father, having gone down on business to the Exeter Assizes, caught 
(as was too common in those days) the jail-fever from the prisoners; 
sickened in the very court ; and died within a week. 

And now Mrs. Leigh was left to God and her own soul, with this 
young lion-cub in leash, to tame and train for this life and the life to 
come. She had loved her husband fervently and holily. He had 
been often peevish, often melancholy; for he was a disappointed man, 
with an estate impoverished by his father’s folly, and his own youthful 
ambition, which had led him up to Court, and made him waste his 
heart and his purse in following a vain shadow. He was one of those 
men, moreover, who possess almost every gift except the gift of the 
power to use them ; and though a scholar, a courtier, and a soldier, he 
had found himself, when he was past forty, without settled employ- 
ment or aim in life, by reason of a certain shyness, pride, or delicate 
honor (call it which you will), which had always kept him from play- 
ing a winning game in that very world after whose prizes he hankered 
to the last, and on which he revenged himself by continual grumbling. 
At last, by his good luck, he met with a fair young Miss Foljambe, of 
Derbyshire, then about Queen Elizabeth’s court, who was as tired as 
he of the sins of the world, though she had seen less of them; and the 
two contrived to please each other so well, that though the queen 
grumbled a little, as usual, at the lady for marrying, and at the gentle- 
man for adoring any one but her royal self, they got leave to vanish 
from the little Babylon at Whitehall, and settle in peace at Burrough. 
In her he found a treasure, and he knew what he had found. 


31 


How Anyas came 'home 

Mrs. Leigh was, and had been from her youth, one of those noble old 
English churchwomen, without superstition, and without severity, 
who are among the fairest features of that heroic time. There was a 
certain melancholy about her, nevertheless; for the recollections of 
her childhood carried her back to times when it was an awful thing to 
be a Protestant. She could remember among them, five-and-twenty 
years ago, the burning of poor blind Joan Waste, at Derby, and of 
Mistress Joyce Lewis, too, like herself, a lady born; and sometimes 
even now, in her nightly dreams, rang in her ears her mother’s bitter 
cries to God, either to spare her that fiery torment, or to give her 
strength to bear it, as she whom she loved had borne it before her. 
For her mother, who was of a good family in Yorkshire, had been one 
of Queen Catherine’s bed-chamber women, and the bosom friend and 
disciple of Anne Askew. And she had sat in Smithfield, with blood 
curdled by horror, to see the hapless court beauty, a month before the 
paragon of Henry’s court, carried in a chair (so crippled was she by 
the rack) to her fiery doom at the stake, beside her fellow-courtier, 
Mr. Lascelles, while the very heavens seemed to the shuddering mob 
around to speak their wrath and grief in solemn thunder peals, and 
heavy drops which hissed upon the crackling pile. 

Therefore a sadness hung upon her all her life, and deepened in the 
days of Queen Mary, when, as a notorious Protestant and heretic she 
had had to hide for her life among the hills and caverns of the Peak, 
and was only saved by the love which her husband’s tenants bore her, 
and by his bold declaration that, good Catholic as he was, he would 
run through the body any constable, justice, or priest, yea, bishop or 
cardinal, who dared to serve the Queen’s warrant upon his wife. 

So she escaped : but, as I said, a sadness hung upon her all her life ; 
and the skirt of that dark mantle fell upon the young girl who had been 
the partner of her wanderings and hidings among the lonely hills ; and 
who, after she was married, gave herself utterly up to God. 

And yet in giving herself to God, Mrs. Leigh gave herself to her 
husband, her children, and the poor of Northam town, and was none 
the less welcome to the Grenviles, and Fortescues, and Chichesters, 
and all the gentle families round, who honored her husband’s talents, 
and enjoyed his wit. She accustomed herself to austerities, which 
often called forth the kindly rebukes of her husband; and yet she did 
so without one superstitious thought of appeasing the fancied wrath of 
God, or of giving him pleasure (base thought) by any pain of hers; 
for her spirit had been trained in the freest and loftiest doctrines of 


32 


Westward Ho ! 

Luther’s school; and that little mystic “Alt-Deutsch Theologie ” (to 
which the great Reformer said that he owed more than to any book, 
save the Bible, and St. Augustine) was her counsellor and comforter 
by day and night. 

And now, at little past forty, she was left a widow; lovely still in 
face and figure; and still more lovely from the divine calm which 
brooded, like the dove of peace and the Holy Spirit of God ( which 
indeed it was), over every look, and word, and gesture; a sweetness 
which had been ripened by storm, as well as by sunshine; which this 
world had not given, and could not take away. No wonder that Sir 
Richard and Lady Grenvile loved her; no wonder that her children 
worshiped her; no wonder that the young Amyas, when the first 
burst of grief was over, and he knew again where he stood, felt that 
a new life had begun for him; that his mother was no more to think 
and act for him only, but that he must think and act for his mother. 
And so it was, that on the very day after his father’s funeral, when 
school-hours were over, instead of coming straight home, he walked 
boldly into Sir Richard Grenvile’s house, and asked to see his god- 
father. 

“ You must be my father now, sir,” said he firmly. 

And Sir Richard looked at the boy’s broad strong face, and swore a 
great and holy oath, like Glasgerion’s, “ by oak, and ash, and thorn,” 
that he would be a father to him, and a brother to his mother, for 
Christ’s sake. And Lady Grenvile took the boy by the hand, and 
walked home with him to Burrough; and there the two fair women 
fell on each other’s necks, and wept together; the one for the loss which 
had been, the other, as by a prophetic instinct, for the like loss which 
was to come to her also. For the sweet St. Leger knew well that her 
husband’s fiery spirit would never leave his body on a peaceful bed; 
but that death (as he prayed almost nightly that it might) would find 
him sword in hand, upon the field of duty and of fame. And there 
those two vowed everlasting sisterhood, and kept their vow ; and after 
that all things went on at Burrough as before; and Amyas rode, and 
shot, and boxed, and wandered on the quay at Sir Richard’s side; for 
Mrs. Leigh was too wise a woman to alter one tittle of the training 
which her husband had thought best for his younger boy. It was 
enough that her elder son had of his own accord taken to that form of 
life in which she in her secret heart would fain have moulded both 
her children. For Frank, God’s wedding gift to that pure love of 
hers, had won himself honor at home and abroad; first at the school at 


83 


How Anyas c&melxame 

Bideford; then at Exeter College, where he had become a friend of 
Sir Philip Sidney’s, and many another young man of rank and prom- 
ise; and next, in the summer of 1572, on his way to the University 
of Heidelberg, he had gone to Paris, with (luckily for him) letters of 
recommendation to Walsingham, at the English Embassy: by which 
letters he not only fell in a second time with Philip Sidney, but saved 
his own life (as Sidney did his) in the Massacre of Saint Bartholo- 
mew’s Day. At Heidelberg he had stayed two years, winning fresh 
honor from all who knew him, and resisting all Sidney’s entreaties to 
follow him into Italy. For, scorning to be a burden to his parents, 
he had become at Heidelberg tutor to two young German princes, 
whom, after living with them at their father’s house for a year or more, 
he at last, to his own great delight, took with him down to Padua, “ to 
perfect them,” as he wrote home, “ according to his insufficiency, in 
all princely studies.” Sidney was now returned to England; but 
F rank found friends enough without him, such letters of recommenda- 
tion and diplomas did he carry from I know not how many princes, 
magnificoes, and learned doctors, who had fallen in love with the learn- 
ing, modesty, and virtue, of the fair young Englishman. And ere 
Frank returned to Germany, he had satiated his soul with all the won- 
ders of that wondrous land. He had talked over the art of sonneter- 
ing with Tasso, the art of history with Sarpi ; he had listened between 
awe and incredulity to the daring theories of Galileo ; he had taken his 
pupils to Venice, that their portraits might be painted by Paulo 
Veronese; he had seen the palaces of Palladio, and the Merchant 
Princes on the Rialto, and the Argosies of Ragusa, and all the won- 
ders of that meeting-point of east and west; he had watched Tinto- 
retto’s mighty hand “hurling tempestuous glories o’er the scene;” 
and even, by dint of private intercession in high places, had been ad- 
mitted to that sacred room, where, with long silver beard and un- 
dimmed eye, amid a pantheon of his own creations, the ancient Titian, 
patriarch of art, still lingered upon earth, and told old tales of the 
Bellinis, and Raffaelle, and Michael Angelo, and the building of St. 
Peter’s, and the fire at Venice, and the Sack of Rome, and of kings 
and warriors, statesmen and poets, long since gone to their account, 
and showed the sacred brush which Francis the First had stooped to 
pick up for him. And (license forbidden to Sidney by his friend 
Languet) he had been to Rome, and seen (much to the scandal of 
good Protestants at home) that “ right good fellow,” as Sidney calls 
him, who had not yet eaten himself to death, the Pope for the time 


34 


Westward Ho I 

being. And he had seen the frescoes of the Vatican, and heard Paels- 
trina preside as chapel-master over the performance of his own music 
beneath the dome of St. Peter’s, and fallen half in love with those 
luscious strains, till he was awakened from his dream by the recollec- 
tion that beneath that same dome had gone up thanksgivings to the 
God of heaven, for those blood-stained streets, and shrieking women, 
and heaps of insulted corpses, which he had beheld in Paris on the 
night of St. Bartholomew. At last, a few months before his father 
died, he had taken back his pupils to their home in Germany, from 
whence he was dismissed, as he wrote, with rich gifts ; and then Mrs. 
Leigh’s heart beat high, at the thought that the wanderer would re- 
turn: but, alas! within a month after his father’s death, came a long 
letter from Frank, describing the Alps, and the valleys of the Wal- 
denses (with whose Barbes he had had much talk about the late 
horrible persecutions), and setting forth how at Padua he had made 
the acquaintance of that illustrious scholar and light of the age, 
Stephanus Parmenius (commonly called from his native place, 
Budseus), who had visited Geneva with him, and heard the disputa- 
tions of their most learned doctors, which both he and Budaeus disliked 
for their hard judgments both of God and man, as much as they ad- 
mired them for their subtlety, being themselves, as became Italian 
students, Platonists of the school of Ficinus and Picus Mirandolensis. 
So wrote Master Frank, in a long sententious letter, full of Latin 
quotations; but the letter never reached the eyes of him for whose 
delight it had been penned ; and the widow had to weep over it alone, 
and to weep more bitterly than ever at the conclusion, in which, with 
many excuses, Frank said that he had, at the special entreaty of the 
said Budseus, set out with him down the Danube stream to Duda, that 
he might, before finishing his travels, make experience of that learn- 
ing for which the Hungarians were famous throughout Europe. And 
after that, though he wrote again and again to the father whom he 
fancied living, no letter in return reached him from home for nearly 
two years; till, fearing some mishap, he hurried back to England, to 
find his mother a widow, and his brother Amyas gone to the South 
Seas with Captain Drake of Plymouth. And yet, even then, after 
years of absence, he was not allowed to remain at home. For Sir 
Richard, to whom idleness was a thing horrible and unrighteous, would 
have him up and doing again before six months were over, and sent 
him off to Court to Lord Hunsdon. 

There, being as delicately beautiful as his brother was huge and 


35 


How Am^as came home 

strong, he had speedily, by Carew’s interest and that of Sidney and 
his Uncle Leicester, found entrance into some office in the Queen’s 
household ; and he was now basking in the full sunshine of Court favor, 
and fair ladies’ eyes, and all the chivalries and Euphuisms of Glori- 
ana’s fairy land, and the fast friendship of that bright meteor, Sidney, 
who had returned with honor in 1577, from the delicate mission on 
behalf of the German and Belgian Protestants, on which he had been 
sent to the Court of Vienna, under color of condoling with the new 
Emperor Rodolph, on his father’s death. Frank found him when he 
himself came to Court in 1579, as lovely and loving as ever; and at the 
early age of twenty-five, acknowledged as one of the most remarkable 
men of Europe, the patron of all men of letters, the counsellor of 
warriors and statesmen, and the confidant and advocate of William 
of Orange, Languet, Plessis du Mornay, and all the Protestant leaders 
on the Continent ; and found, moreover, that the son of the poor Devon 
squire was as welcome as ever to the friendship of nature’s and for- 
tune’s most favored, yet most unspoiled, minion. 

Poor Mrs. Leigh, as one who had long since learned to have no 
self, and to live not only for her children, but in them, submitted with- 
out a murmur, and only said, smiling to her stern friend — “ You took 
away my mastiff-pup, and now you must needs have my fair grey- 
hound also.” 

“ Would you have your fair greyhound, dear lady, grow up a tall 
and true Cotswold dog, that can pull down a stack of ten, or one of 
those smooth-skinned poppets which the Florence ladies lead about 
with a ring of bells round its neck, and a flannel farthingale over 
its loins? ” 

Mrs. Leigh submitted; and was rewarded after a few months by a 
letter sent through Sir Richard, from none other than Gloriana her- 
self, in which she thanked her for “ the loan of that most delicate and 
flawless crystal, the soul of her excellent son,” with more praises of 
him than I have room to insert, and finished by exalting the poor 
mother above the famed Cornelia; “ for those sons, whom she called 
her jewels, she only showed, yet kept them to herself: but you, madam, 
having two as precious, I doubt not, as were ever that Roman dame’s, 
have, beyond her courage, lent them both to your country and to your 
queen, who therein holds herself indebted to you for that which, if God 
give her grace, she will repay as becomes both her and you.” Which 
epistle the sweet mother bedewed with holy tears, and laid by in the 
cedar-box which held her household gods, by the side of Frank’s in- 


36 


Westward Ho ! 

numerable diplomas and letters of recommendation, the Latin whereof 
she was always spelling over (although she understood not a word of 
it), in hopes of finding here and there that precious eoocellentissimus 
Noster Franciscus Leighius Anglus, which was all in all to the 
mother’s heart. 

But why did Amyas go to the South Seas? Amyas went to the 
South Seas for two causes, each of which has before now sent many 
a lad to far worse places: first, because of an old schoolmaster; sec- 
ondly, because of a young beauty. I will take them in order, and 
explain. 

Vindex Brimblecombe, whilom servitor of Exeter College, Oxford 
(commonly called Sir Vindex, after the fashion of the times), was, in 
those days, master of the grammar-school of Bideford. He was, at 
root, a godly and kind-hearted pedant enough: but, like most school- 
masters in the old flogging days, had his heart pretty well hardened 
by long baneful license to inflict pain at will on those weaker than 
himself; a power healthful enough for the victim (for doubtless 
flogging is the best of all punishments, being not only the shortest, 
but also a mere bodily and animal and, not, like most of our new- 
fangled “humane” punishments, a spiritual and fiendish torture), 
but for the executioner pretty certain to eradicate from all but the 
noblest spirits every trace of chivalry and tenderness for the weak, 
as well, often, as all self-control and command of temper. Be that 
as it may, old Sir Vindex had heart enough to feel that it was now his 
duty to take especial care of the fatherless boy to whom he tried to 
teach his qui, quae, quod: but the only outcome of that new sense of 
responsibility was a rapid increase in the number of floggings, which 
rose from about two a week, to one per diem, not without consequences 
to the pedagogue himself. 

For all this while, Amyas had never for a moment lost sight of his 
darling desire for a sea life; and when he could not wander on the 
quay and stare at the shipping, or go down to the pebble-ridge at 
Northam, and there sit devouring with hungry eyes the great expanse 
of ocean, which seemed to woo him outward into boundless space, he 
used to console himself in school hours by drawing ships and imagi- 
nary charts upon his slate, instead of minding his “ humanities.” 

Now it befel upon an afternoon, that he was very busy at a map, 
or bird’s eye view of an island, whereon was a great castle, and at the 
gate thereof a dragon, terrible to see; while in the foreground came 
that which was meant for a gallant ship, with a great flag aloft, but 


37 


How Anyas came home 

which, by reason of the forest of lances with which it was crowded, 
looked much more like a porcupine carrying a sign-post; and at the 
roots of those lances many little round o’s, whereby were signified the 
heads of Amy as and his schoolfellows, who were about to slay that 
dragon, and rescue the beautiful princes who dwelt in that enchanted 
tower. To behold which marvel of art, all the other boys at the same 
desk must needs club their heads together, and with the more security, 
because Sir Vindex, as was his custom after dinner, was lying back in 
his chair, and slept the sleep of the just. 

But when Amyas, by special instigation of the evil spirit who haunts 
successful artists, proceeded further to introduce, heedless of per- 
spective, a rock, on which stood the lively portraiture of Sir Vindex — 
nose, spectacles, gown, and all ; and in his hand a brandished rod, while 
out of his mouth a label shrieked after the runaways, “You come 
back! ” while a similar label replied from the gallant bark, “ Good-bye, 
master! ” the shoving and tittering rose to such a pitch that Cerberus 
awoke, and demanded sternly what the noise was about. To which, 
of course, there was no answer. 

“You, of course, Leigh! Come up, sir, and show me your exer- 
citation.” 

Now of Amyas’s exercitation not a word was written; and, more- 
over, he was in the very article of putting the last touches to Mr. 
Brimblecombe’s portrait. Whereon, to the astonishment of all 
hearers, he made answer — 

“All in good time, sir! ” and went on drawing. 

“ In good time, sir! Insolent, veni et vapula! ” 

But Amyas went on drawing. 

“ Come hither, sirrah, or I’ll flay you alive! ” 

“ Wait a bit! ” answered Amyas. 

The old gentleman jumped up, ferula in hand, and darted across 
the school, and saw himself upon the fatal slate. 

“ Proh flagitium! what have we here, villain? ” and clutching at his 
victim, he raised the cane. Whereupon, with a serene and cheerful 
countenance, up rose the mighty form of Amyas Leigh, a head and 
shoulders above his tormentor, and that slate descended on the bald 
coxcomb of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, with so shrewd a blow, that 
slate and pate cracked at the same instant, and the poor pedagogue 
dropped to the floor, and lay for dead. 

After which Amyas arose, and walked out of the school, and so 
quietly home; and having taken counsel with himself, went to his 


38 Westward Ho ! 

mother, and said, “ Please, mother, I’ve broken schoolmaster’s 
head.” 

“ Broken his head, thou wicked boy!” shrieked the poor widow; 
“ what didst do that for? ” 

“I can’t tell,” said Amyas, penitently; “I couldn’t help it. It 
looked so smooth, and bald, and round, and — you know? ” 

“I know? Oh, wicked boy! thou hast given place to the devil; 
and now, perhaps, thou hast killed him.” 

“ Killed the devil? ” asked Amyas, hopefully, but doubtfully. 

“ No, killed the schoolmaster, sirrah! Is he dead? ” 

“ I don’t think he’s dead; his coxcomb sounded too hard for that. 
But had not I better go and tell Sir Richard? ” 

The poor mother could hardly help laughing, in spite of her terror, 
at Amyas’s perfect coolness (which was not in the least meant for 
insolence), and being at her wits’ end, sent him as usual to his god- 
father. 

Amyas rehearsed his story again, with pretty nearly the same ex- 
clamations, to which he gave pretty nearly the same answers; and 
then — 

“ What was he going to do to you, then, sirrah? ” 

“ Flog me, because I could not write my exercise, and so drew a 
picture of him instead.” 

“ What! art afraid of being flogged? ” 

“ Not a bit; besides, I’m too much accustomed to it; but I was busy, 
and he was in such a desperate hurry ; and, oh, sir, if you had but seen 
his bald head, you would have broken it yourself! ” 

Now Sir Richard had, twenty years ago, in like place, and very 
much in like manner, broken the head of Vindex Brimblecombe’s 
father, schoolmaster in his day; and therefore had a precedent to direct 
him; and he answered: 

“Amyas, sirrah! those who cannot obey, will never be fit to rule. 
If thou canst not keep discipline now, thou wilt never make a com- 
pany or a crew keep it when thou art grown. Dost mind that, sirrah? ” 

“ Yes,” said Amyas. 

“ Then go back to school this moment, sir, and be flogged.” 

“ Very well,” said Amyas, considering that he had got off very 
cheaply; while Sir Richard, as soon as he was out of the room, lay 
back in his chair, and laughed till he cried again. 

So Amyas went back, and said that he was come to be flogged; 
whereon the old schoolmaster, whose pate had been plastered mean- 


How Anyas eame'bome *» 

while, wept tears of joy over the returning prodigal, and then gave 
him such a switching as he did not forget for eight-and-forty hours. 

But that evening Sir Richard sent for old Vindex, who entered, 
trembling, cap in hand; and having primed him with a cup of sack, 
said, — 

“Well, Mr. Schoolmaster! My godson has been somewhat too 
much for you to-day. There are a couple of nobles to pay the doctor.” 

“ Oh, Sir Richard, gratias tibi et Domino ! but the boy hits shrewdly 
hard. Nevertheless I have repaid him in inverse kind, and set him 
an imposition, to leam me one of Pheedrus his fables, Sir Richard, if 
you do not think it too much.” 

“ Which then? The one about the man who brought up a lion’s 
cub, and was eaten by him in play at last? ” 

“Ah, Sir Richard! you have always a merry wit. But, indeed, the 
boy is a brave boy, and a quick boy, Sir Richard, but more forgetful 
than Lethe; and — sapienti loquor — it were well if he were away, for 
I shall never see him again without my head aching. Moreover, he 
put my son Jack upon the fire last Wednesday, as you would put a 
football, though he is a year older, your Worship, because, he said, he 
looked so like a roasting pig, Sir Richard.” 

“Alas, poor Jack! ” 

“And what’s more, your Worship, he is pugnax , bellicosus, gladi- 
ator , a fire-eater and swash-buckler, beyond all Christian measure; a 
very sucking Entellus, Sir Richard, and will do to death some of her 
majesty’s lieges ere long, if he be not wisely curbed. It was but a 
month agone that he bemoaned himself, I hear, as Alexander did, be- 
cause there were no more worlds to conquer, saying that it was a pity 
he was so strong, for now he had thrashed all the Bideford lads, he 
had no sport left; and so, as my Jack tells me, last Tuesday week he 
fell upon a young man of Barnstaple, Sir Richard, a hosier’s man, sir, 
and plebeius (which I consider unfit for one of his blood) , and, more- 
over, a man full grown, and as big as either of us (Vindex stood five 
feet four in his high-heeled shoes) , and smote him clean over the quay 
into the inud, because he said that there was a prettier maid in Barn- 
staple (your Worship will forgive my speaking of such toys, to which 
my fidelity compels me) than ever Bideford could show; and then 
offered to do the same to any man who dare say that Mistress Rose 
Salterne, his Worship the Mayor’s daughter, was not the fairest lass 
in all Devon.” 

“ Eh? Say that over again, my good sir,” quoth Sir Richard, who 


40 


Westward Ho ! 

had thus arrived, as we have seen, at the second count of the indict- 
ment. “ I say, good sir, whence dost thou hear all these pretty 
stories? ” 

“ My son Jack, Sir Richard, my son Jack, ingenui vultus puer” 

“ But not, it seems, ingenui pudoris . Tell thee what, Mr. School- 
master, no wonder if thy son gets put on the fire, if thou employ him 
as a tale-bearer. But that is the way of all pedagogues and their 
sons, by which they train the lads up eaves-droppers and favor-cur- 
riers, and prepare them, — sirrah, do you hear? — for a much more last- 
ing and hotter fire than that which has scorched thy son Jack’s nether- 
tackle. Do you mark me, sir? ” 

The poor pedagogue, thus cunningly caught in his own trap, stood 
trembling before his patron, who, as hereditary head of the Bridge- 
trust, which endowed the school and the rest of the Bideford charities, 
could, by a turn of his finger, sweep him forth with the besom of 
destruction; and he gasped with terror as Sir Richard went on — 

“ Therefore, mind you, Sir Schoolmaster, unless you shall promise 
me never to hint word of what has passed between us two, and that 
neither you nor yours shall henceforth carry tales of my godson, or 
speak his name within a day’s march of Mistress Salterne’s, look to 
it, if I do not ” 

What was to be done in default was not spoken; for down went 
poor old Vindex on his knees: — 

“Oh, Sir Richard! Excellen tissim e, immo prcecelsissime Domine 
et Senator, I promise! O sir, Miles et Eques of the Garter, Bath, and 
Golden Fleece, consider your dignities, and my old age — and my great 
family — nine children — oh, Sir Richard, and eight of them girls ! — Do 
eagles war with mice? says the ancient! ” 

“ Thy large family, eh? How old is that fat-witted son of thine? ” 
“ Sixteen, Sir Richard; but that is not his fault, indeed! ” 

“ Nay, I suppose he would be still sucking his thumb if he dared — 
get up, man — get up and seat yourself.” 

“ Heaven forbid! ” murmured poor Vindex, with deep humility. 

“ Why is not the rogue at Oxford, with a murrain on him, instead 
of lurching about here carrying tales, and ogling the maidens? ” 

“ I had hoped, Sir Richard — and therefore I said it was not his 
fault — but there was never a servitorship at Exeter open.” 

“ Go to, man — go to! I will speak to my brethren of the trust, and 
to Oxford he shall go this autumn, or else to Exeter jail, for a strong 
rogue, and a masterless man. Do you hear? ” 


41 


How Aliyas c&me'bome 

“ Hear? — oh, sir, yes! and return thanks. Jack shall go, Sir Rich- 
ard, doubt it not — I were mad else; and, Sir Richard, may I go too? ” 

And therewith Vindex vanished, and Sir Richard enjoyed a second 
mighty laugh, which brought in Lady Grenvile, who possibly had 
overheard the whole; for the first words she said were — 

“ I think, my sweet life, we had better go up to Burrough.” 

So to Burrough they went; and after much talk, and many tears, 
matters were so concluded that Amyas Leigh found himself riding 
joyfully toward Plymouth, by the side of Sir Richard, and being 
handed over to Captain Drake, vanished for three years from the good 
town of Bideford. 

Aoid now he is returned in triumph, and the observed of all ob- 
servers; and looks round and round, and sees all faces whom he ex- 
pects, except one; and that the one which he had rather see than his 
mother’s? He is not quite sure. Shame on himself! 

And now the prayers being ended, the Rector ascends the pulpit, 
and begins his sermon on the text: — 

“ The heaven and the heaven of heavens are the Lord’s ; the whole 
earth hath he given to the children of men;” deducing therefrom 
craftily, to the exceeding pleasure of his hearers, the iniquity of the 
Spaniards in dispossessing the Indians, and in arrogating to them- 
selves the sovereignty of the tropic seas; the vanity of the Pope of 
Rome in pretending to bestow on them the new countries of America; 
and the justice, valor, and glory of Mr. Drake and his expedition, as 
testified by God’s miraculous protection of him and his, both in the 
Straits of Magellan, and in his battle with the Galleon; and last, but 
not least, upon the rock by Celebes, when the Pelican lay for hours 
firmly fixed, and was floated off unhurt, as it were by miracle, by a 
sudden shift of wind. 

Ay, smile, reader, if you will; and, perhaps, there was matter for 
a smile in that honest sermon, interlarded, as it was, with scraps of 
Greek and Hebrew, which no one understood, but every one expected 
as their right (for a preacher was nothing then who could not prove 
himself “a good Latiner”) ; and graced, moreover, by a somewhat 
pedantic and lengthy refutation from Scripture of Dan Horace’s 
cockney horror of the sea — 

“Illi robur et ees triplex,” etc. 

and his infidel and ungodly slander against the “ impias rates,” and 
their crews. 

Smile, if you will: but those were days (and there were never less 


42 


Westward Ho ! 

superstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living God, 
and were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His help 
and providence, and calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now 
in our covert Atheism term “secular and carnal and when, the 
sermon ended, the Communion Service had begun, and the bread and 
the wine were given to those five mariners, every gallant gentleman 
who stood near them (for the press would not allow of more), knelt 
and received the elements with them as a thing of course, and then rose 
to join with heart and voice not merely in the Gloria in Eoccelsis , but in 
the Te Deum, which was the closing act of all. And no sooner had 
the clerk given out the first verse of that great hymn, than it was taken 
up by five hundred voices within the church, in bass and tenor, treble 
and alto (for every one could sing in those days, and the west country 
folk, as now, were fuller than any of music) , the chant was caught up 
by the crowd outside, and rang away over roof and river, up to the 
woods of Annery, and down to the marshes of the Taw, in wave on 
wave of harmony. And as it died away, the shipping in the river 
made answer with their thunder, and the crowd streamed out again 
toward the Bridge Head, whither Sir Richard Grenvile, and Sir 
John Chichester, and Mr. Salterne, the Mayor, led the five heroes 
of the day to await the pageant which had been prepared in honor of 
them. And as they went by, there were few in the crowd who did 
not press forward to shake them by the hand, and not only them, but 
their parents and kinsfolk who walked behind, till Mrs. Leigh, her 
stately joy quite broken down at last, could only answer between her 
sobs, “ Go along, good people — God a mercy, go along — and God 
send you all such sons ! ” 

“ God give me back mine! ” cried an old red-cloaked dame in the 
crowd; and then, struck by some hidden impulse, she sprang forward, 
and catching hold of young Amyas’s sleeve — 

“ Kind sir! dear sir! For Christ his sake answer a poor old widow 
woman ! ” 

“ What is it, dame? ” quoth Amyas, gently enough. 

“ Did you see my son to the Indies? — my son Salvation? ” 

“ Salvation? ” replied he, with the air of one who recollected the 
name. 

“ Yes, sure, Salvation Yeo, of Clovelly. A tall man and black, 
and sweareth awfully in his talk, the Lord forgive him! ” 

Amyas recollected now. It was the name of the sailor who had 
given him the wondrous horn five years ago. 


43 


How Anyas came tome 

“ My good dame,” said he, “ the Indies are a very large place, and 
your son may be safe and sound enough there, without my having 
seen him. I knew one Salvation Yeo. But he must have come 
with By the by, godfather, has Mr. Oxenham come home? ” 

There was a dead silence for a moment among the gentlemen round; 
and then Sir Richard said solemnly, and in a low voice, turning away 
from the old dame: 

“Amyas, Mr. Oxenham has not come home; and from the day he 
sailed, no word has been heard of him, and all his crew.” 

“ Oh, Sir Richard! and you kept me from sailing with him! Had 
I known this before I went into church, I had had one mercy more to 
thank God for.” 

“Thank Him all the more in thy life, my child!” whispered his 
mother. 

“And no news of him whatsoever? ” 

“ None; but that the year after he sailed, a ship belonging to An- 
drew Barker, of Bristol, took out of a Spanish caravel, somewhere off 
the Honduras, his two brass guns; but whence they came the Spaniard 
knew not, having bought them at Nombre de Dios.” 

“ Yes! ” cried the old woman; “ they brought home the guns and 
never brought home my boy ! ” 

“ They never saw your boy, mother,” said Sir Richard. 

“ But I’ve seen him! I saw him in a dream four years last Whit- 
suntide, as plain as I see you now, gentles, a-lying upon a rock, calling 
for a drop of water to cool his tongue, like Dives to the torment ! Oh ! 
dear me! ” and the old dame wept bitterly. 

“ There is a rose noble for you! ” said Mrs. Leigh. 

“And there another!” said Sir Richard. And in a few minutes 
four or five gold coins were in her hand. But the old dame did but 
look wonderingly at the gold a moment, and then — 

“Ah ! dear gentles, God’s blessing on you, and Mr. Cary’s mighty 
good to me already; but gold won’t buy back childer! O! young 
gentleman! young gentleman! make me a promise; if you want God’s 
blessing on you this day, bring me back my boy, if you find him sailing 
on the seas! Bring him back, and an old widow’s blessing be on 
you!” 

Amyas promised — what else could he do? — and the group hurried 
on; but the lad’s heart was heavy in the midst of joy, with the thought 
of John Oxenham, as he walked through the churchyard, and down 
the short street which led between the ancient school and still more 


44 


Westward Ho ! 

ancient town-house, to the head of the long bridge, across which the 
pageant, having arranged “ east-the-water,” was to defile, and then 
turn to the right along the quay. 

However, he was bound in all courtesy to turn his attention now to 
the show which had been prepared in his honor; and which was really 
well enough worth seeing and hearing. The English were, in those 
days, an altogether dramatic people; ready and able, as in Bideford 
that day, to extemporize a pageant, a masque, or any effort of the 
Thespian art short of the regular drama. For they were, in the first 
place, even down to the very poorest, a well-fed people, with fewer 
luxuries than we, but more abundant necessaries ; and while beef, ale, 
and good woolen clothes could be obtained in plenty, without over- 
working either body or soul, men had time to amuse themselves in 
something more intellectual than mere toping in pot-houses. More- 
over, the half century after the Reformation in England, was one not 
merely of new intellectual freedom, but of immense animal good 
spirits. After years of dumb confusion and cruel persecution, a 
breathing time had come: Mary and the fires of Smithfield had van- 
ished together like a hideous dream, and the mighty shout of joy which 
greeted Elizabeth’s entry into London, was the key-note of fifty 
glorious years; the expression of a new-found strength and freedom, 
which vented itself at home in drama and in song; abroad in mighty 
conquests, achieved with the laughing recklessness of boys at play. 

So first, preceded by the waits, came along the bridge toward the 
town-hall, a device prepared by the good rector, who, standing by, 
acted as showman, and explained anxiously to the bystanders the 
import of a certain “ allegory ” wherein on a great banner was de- 
picted Queen Elizabeth herself, who, in ample ruff and farthingale, a 
Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, stood triumphant upon the 
necks of two sufficiently abject personages, whose triple tiara and 
imperial crown proclaimed them the Pope and the King of Spain; 
while a label, issuing from her royal mouth, informed the world that — 

“By land and sea a virgin queen I reign, 

And spurn to dust both Antichrist and Spain.’ ’ 

Which, having been received with due applause, a well-bedizened lad, 
having in his cap as a posy “ Loyalty,” stepped forward, and de- 
livered himself of the following verses: — 

4 ‘Oh, great Eliza! oh, world-famous crew! 

Which shall I hail more blest, your queen or you? 


45 


How Am^as came home 

While without other either falls to wrack, 

And light must eyes, or eyes their light must lack. 

She without you, a diamond sunk in mine, 

Its worth unprized, to self alone must shine ; 

You without her, like hands bereft of head, 

Like Ajax rage, by blindfold lust misled. 

She light, you eyes ; she head, and you the hands, 

In fair proportion knit by heavenly bands ; 

Servants in queen, and queen in servants blest ; 

Your only glory, how to serve her best ; 

And hers how best the adventurous might to guide, 

Which knows no check of foemen, wind, or tide, 

So fair Eliza’s spotless fame may fly 
Triumphant round the globe, and shake th’ astounded sky!” 

With which sufficiently bad verses Loyalty passed on, while my Lady 
Bath hinted to Sir Richard, not without reason, that the poet, in try- 
ing to exalt both parties, had very sufficiently snubbed both, and inti- 
mated that it was “ hardly safe for country wits to attempt that 
euphuistic, antithetical, and delicately conceited vein, whose proper 
fountain was in Whitehall.” However, on went Loyalty, very well 
pleased with himself, and next, amid much cheering, two great tinsel 
fish, a salmon, and a trout, symbolical of the wealth of Torridge, 
waddled along, by means of two human legs and a staff apiece, which 
protruded from the fishes’ stomachs. They drew (or seemed to draw, 
for half the ’prentices in the town were shoving it behind, and cheering 
on the panting monarchs of the flood) a car wherein sate, amid reeds 
and river-flags, three or four pretty girls in robes of gray-blue 
spangled with gold, their heads wreathed one with a crown of the 
sweet bog-myrtle, another with hops and white convolvulus, the third 
with pale heather and golden fern. They stopped opposite Amyas; 
and she of the myrtle-wreath, rising and bowing, to him and the com- 
pany, began with a pretty blush to say her say : — 

“Hither from my moorland home, 

Nymph of Torridge, proud I come ; 

Leaving fen and furzy brake, 

Haunt of eft and spotted snake, 

Where to fill mine urns I use, 

Daily with Atlantic dews ; 

While beside the reedy flood 
Wild duck leads her paddling brood. 

For this morn, as Phoebus gay 

Chased through heaven the night mist gray, 

Close beside me, prankt in pride, 

Sister Tamar rose, and cried, 


46 


Westward Ho & 

4 Sluggard, up ! ’Tis holiday, 

In the lowlands far away. 

Hark! how jocund Plymouth bells, 
Wandering up through mazy dells, 

Call me down, with smiles to hail, 

My daring Drake’s returning sail/ 

* Thine alone ? ’ I answer ’d. ‘ Nay ; 

Mine as well the joy to-day. 

Heroes train’d on Northern wave, 

To that Argo new I gave ; 

Lent to thee, they roam’d the main; 

Give me, nymph, my sons again. ’ 

* Go, they wait Thee, ’ Tamar cried, 
Southward bounding from my side. 

Glad I rose, and at my call, 

Came my Naiads, one and all. 

Nursling of the mountain sky, 

Leaving Dian’s choir on high, 

Down her cataracts laughing loud, 
Ockment leapt from crag and cloud, 
Leading many a nymph, who dwells 
Where wild deer drink in ferny dells ; 
While the Oreads as they past 
Peep’d from Druid Tors aghast. 

By alder copses sliding slow, 

Knee-deep in flowers came gentler Yeo, 
And paused awhile her locks to twine 
With musky hops and white woodbine, 
Then joined the silver-footed band, 
Which circled down my golden sand, 

By dappled park, and harbor shady, 
Haunt of love-lorn knight and lady, 

My thrice-renowned sons to greet, 

With rustic song and pageant meet. 

For joy ! the girdled robe around 
Eliza’s name henceforth shall sound, 
Whose venturous fleets to conquest start, 
Where ended once the seaman’s chart, 
While circling Sol his steps shall count 
Henceforth from Thule’s western mount, 
And lead new rulers round the seas 
From furthest Cassiterides. 

For found is now the golden tree, 

Solv’d th’ Atlantic mystery, 

Pluck’d the dragon-guarded fruit; 
While around the charmed root, 

Wailing loud, the Hesperids 
Watch their warder’s drooping lids. 

Low he lies with grisly wound, 

While the sorceress triple-crown ’d 
In her scarlet robe doth shield him, 


47 


How Am^as came home 

Till her cunning spells have heal’d him. 

Ye, meanwhile, around the earth 
Bear the prize of manful worth. 

Yet a nobler meed than gold 
Waits for Albion’s children bold; 

Great Eliza’s virgin hand 
Welcomes you to Fairy-land, 

While your native Naiads bring 
Native wreaths as offering. 

Simple though their show may be, 

Britain’s worship in them see. 

’Tis not price, nor outward fairness, 

Gives the victor’s palm its rareness; 

Simplest tokens can impart 
Noble throb to noble heart: 

Gracia, prize thy parsley crown, 

Boast thy laurel, Caesar’s town; 

Moorland myrtle still shall be 
Badge of Devon’s Chivalry!” 

And so ending, she took the wreath of fragrant gale from her own 
head, and stooping from the car, placed it on the head of Amyas 
Leigh, who made answer — 

“ There is no place like home, my fair mistress ; and no scent to my 
taste like this old home-scent in all the spice-islands that I ever 
sailed by! ” 

“ Her song was not so bad,” said Sir Richard to Lady Bath — “ but 
how came she to hear Plymouth bells at Tamar-head, full fifty miles 
away? That’s too much of a poet’s license, is it not? ” 

“ The river nymphs, as daughters of Oceanus, and thus of immortal 
parentage, are bound to possess organs of more than mortal keenness ; 
but, as you say, the song was not so bad — erudite, as well as prettily 
conceived — and, saving for a certain rustical simplicity and mono- 
syllabic baldness, smacks rather of the forests of Castaly than those 
of Torridge.” 

So spake my Lady Bath; whom Sir Richard wisely answered not; 
for she was a terribly learned member of the college of critics, and 
disputed even with Sidney’s sister the chieftaincy of the Euphuists; 
so Sir Richard answered not, but answer was made for him. 

“ Since the whole choir of Muses, madam, have migrated to the 
Court of Whitehall, no wonder if some dews of Parnassus should 
fertilize at times even our Devon moors.” 

The speaker was a tall and slim young man, some five-and-twenty 
years old, of so rare and delicate a beauty, that it seemed that some 


48 


Westward Ho ! 

Greek statue, or rather one of those pensive and pious knights whom 
the old German artists took delight to paint, had condescended to 
tread awhile this work-day earth in living flesh and blood. The fore- 
head was very lofty and smooth, the eyebrows thin and greatly arched 
(the envious gallants whispered that something at least of their curve 
was due to art, as was also the exceeding smoothness of those delicate 
cheeks). The face was somewhat long and thin; the nose aquiline; 
and the languid mouth showed, perhaps, too much of the ivory upper 
teeth; but the most striking point of the speaker’s appearance was 
the extraordinary brilliancy of his complexion, which shamed with its 
whiteness that of all fair ladies round, save where open on each cheek 
a bright red spot gave warning, as did the long thin neck and the taper 
hands, of sad possibilities, perhaps not far off; possibilities which all 
saw with an inward sigh, except she whose doting glances, as well as 
her resemblance to the fair youth, proclaimed her at once his mother, 
Mrs. Leigh herself. 

Master Frank, for he it was, was dressed in the very extravagance 
of the fashion, — -not so much from vanity, as from that delicate instinct 
of self-respect which would keep some men spruce and spotless from 
one year’s end to another upon a desert island; “ for,” as Frank used 
to say in his sententious way, “ Mr. Frank Leigh at least beholds me, 
though none else be by; and why should I be more discourteous to him 
than I permit others to be? Be sure that he who is a Grobian in his 
own company, will, sooner or later, become a Grobian in that of his 
friends.” 

So Mr. Frank was arrayed spotlessly; but after the latest fashion 
of Milan, not in trunk hose and slashed sleeves, nor in “ French stand- 
ing collar, treble quadruple dsedalian ruff, or stiff-necked rabato, that 
had more arches for pride, propped up with wire and timber, than 
five London Bridges ; ” but in a close-fitting and perfectly plain suit 
of dove-color, which set off cunningly the delicate proportions of his 
figure, and the delicate hue of his complexion, which was shaded from 
the sun by a broad dove-colored Spanish hat, with feather to match, 
looped up over the right ear with a pearl brooch, and therein a 
crowned E, supposed by the damsels of Bideford to stand for Eliza- 
beth, which was whispered to be the gift of some most illustrious hand. 
This same looping up was not without good reason and purpose pre- 
pense; thereby all the world had full view of a beautiful little ear, 
which looked as if it had been cut out of cameo, and made, as my Lady 
Rich once told him, “ to hearken only to the music of the spheres, or 


How Arryas came home 49 

to the chants of cherubim.” Behind the said ear was stuck a fresh 
rose; and the golden hair was all drawn smoothly back and round to 
the left temple, whence, tied with a pink ribbon in a great true lover’s 
knot, a mighty love-lock, “ curled as it had been laid in press,” rolled 
down low upon his bosom. Oh, Frank! Frank! have you come out 
on purpose to break the hearts of all Bideford burghers’ daughters? 
And if so, did you expect to further that triumph by dyeing that 
pretty little pointed beard (with shame I report it) of a bright ver- 
milion? But we know you better, Frank, and so does your mother; 
and you are but a masquerading angel after all, in spite of your knots 
and your perfumes, and the gold chain round your neck which a Ger- 
man princess gave you; and the emerald ring on your right fore-finger 
which Hatton gave you ; and the pair of perfumed gloves in your left 
which Sidney’s sister gave you; and the silver-hilted Toledo which an 
Italian marquis gave you, on a certain occasion of which you never 
choose to talk, like a prudent and modest gentleman as you are: but 
of which the gossips talk, of course, all the more, and whisper that you 
saved his life from bravoes — a dozen, at the least; and had that sword 
for your reward, and might have had his beautiful sister’s hand beside, 
and I know not what else: but that you had so many lady-loves already 
that you were loth to burden yourself with a fresh one. That, at least, 
we know to be a lie, fair Frank; for your heart is as pure this day as 
when you knelt in your little crib at Burrough, and said — 

“Four corners to my bed; 

Four angels round my head ; 

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and J ohn, 

Bless the bed that I lie on. ’ ’ 

And who could doubt it (if being pure themselves, they have in- 
stinctive sympathy with what is pure), who ever looked into those 
great deep blue eyes of yours, “ the black fringed curtains of whose 
azure lids,” usually down-dropt as if in deepest thought, you raise 
slowly, almost wonderingly, each time you speak, as if awakening 
from some fair dream whose home is rather in your Platonical “ eternal 
world of supra-sensible forms,” than on that work-day earth wherein 
you nevertheless acquit yourself so well? There — I must stop de- 
scribing you, or I shall catch the infection of your own Euphuism, and 
talk of you as you would have talked of Sidney, or of Spenser, or of 
that Swan of "Avon, whose song had just begun when yours — but 
I will not anticipate; my Lady Bath is waiting to give you her 
rejoinder. 


50 


Westwara Ho ! 

“Ah, my silver-tongued scholar! and are you, then, the poet? or 
have you been drawing on the inexhaustible bank of your friend 
Raleigh, or my cousin Sidney? or has our new Cygnet Immerito lent 
you a few unpublished leaves from some fresh Shepherd’s Calendar? ” 

“ Had either, madam, of that cynosural triad been within call of 
my most humble importunities, your ears had been delectate with far 
nobler melody.” 

“ But not our eyes with fairer faces, eh? Well, you have chosen 
your nymphs, and had good store from whence to pick, I doubt not. 
Few young Dulcinas round but must have been glad to take service 
under so renowned a captain? ” 

“ The only difficulty, gracious Countess, has been to know where to 
fix the wandering choice of my bewildered eyes, where all alike are 
fair, and all alike facund.” 

“ We understand,” said she, smiling; — 

“Dan Cupid, choosing ’midst his mother’s graces, 

Himself more fair, made scorn of fairest faces. ’ ’ 

The young scholar capped her distich forthwith, and bowing to her 
with a meaning look, 

“ ‘Then, Goddess, turn,’ he cried, ‘and veil thy light; 

Blinded by thine, what eyes can choose aright?’ ” 

“ Go, saucy sir,” said my lady, in high glee; “ the pageant stays your 
supreme pleasure.” 

And away went Mr. Frank as master of the revels, to bring up the 
’prentices’ pageant; while, for his sake, the nymph of Torridge was 
forgotten for a while by all young dames, and most young gentlemen; 
and his mother heaved a deep sigh, which Lady Bath overhearing — 

“ What? in the dumps, good madam, while all are rejoicing in your 
joy? Are you afraid that we court-dames shall turn your young 
Adonis’ brain for him? ” 

“ I do, indeed, fear lest your condescension should make him forget 
that he is only a poor squire’s orphan.” 

“ I will warrant him never to forget aught that he should recollect,” 
said my Lady Bath. 

And she spoke truly. But soon Frank’s silver voice was heard 
calling out: 

“ Room there, good people, for the gallant ’prentice lads! ” 

And on they came, headed by a giant of buckram and pasteboard 


51 


How Amyas c&me'boroe 

armor, forth of whose stomach looked, like a clock-face in a steeple, 
a human visage, to be greeted, as was the fashion then, by a volley of 
quips and puns from high and low. 

Young Mr. William Cary, of Clovelly, who was the wit of those 
parts, opened the fire by asking him whether he were Goliath, Gog- 
magog, or Grantorto in the romance; for giants’ names always began 
with a G. To which the giant’s stomach answered pretty surlily, — 

“ Mine don’t; I begin with an O.” 

“ Then thou criest out before thou art hurt, O cowardly giant! ” 

“ Let me out, lads,” quoth the irascible visage, struggling in his 
buckram prison, “ and I soon show him whether I be a coward.” 

“ Nay, if thou gettest out of thyself, thou wouldst be beside thyself, 
and so wert but a mad giant.” 

“And that were pity,” said Lady Bath; “for by the romances, 
giants have never over much wit to spare.” 

“ Mercy, dear Lady! ” said Frank, “ and let the giant begin with 
an O.” 

“A ” 

“A false start, giant! you were to begin with an O.” 

“I’ll make you end with an O, Mr. William Cary!” roared the 
testy tower of buckram. 

“And so I do, for I end with ‘ Fico! ’ ” 

“ Be mollified, sweet giant,” said Frank, “ and spare the rash youth 
of yon foolish Knight. Shall elephants catch flies, or Hurlo-Thrumbo 
stain his club with brains of Dagonet the jester? Be mollified; leave 
thy caverned grumblings, like Etna when its windy wrath is past, and 
discourse eloquence from thy central omphalos, like Pythoness ven- 
triloquizing.” 

“ If you do begin laughing at me too, Mr. Leigh ” said the 

giant’s clock-face, in a piteous tone. 

“ I laugh not. Art thou not Ordulf the earl, and I thy humblest 
squire? Speak up, my Lord; your cousin, my Lady Bath, com- 
mands you.” 

And at last the giant began: — 

“A giant I, Earl Ordulf men me call, — 

’Gainst Paynim foes Devonia’s champion tall; 

In single fight six thousand Turks I slew ; 

Pull ’d off a lion ’s head, and ate it too : 

With one shrewd blow, to let Saint Edward in, 

I smote the gates of Exeter in twain ; 


52 


Westward Ho ! 

Till aged grown, by angels warn 'd in dream, 

I built an abbey fair by Tavy stream. 

But treacherous time hath tripp'd my glories up, 

The staunch old hound must yield to stauncher pup ; 

Here's one so tall as I, and twice so bold, 

Where I took only cuffs, takes good red gold. 

From pole to pole resound his wondrous works, 

Who slew more Spaniards than I ere slew Turks ; 

I strode across the Tavy stream : but he 
Strode round the world and back ; and here 'a be ! ’ 9 

“Oh, bathos!” said Lady Bath, while the ’prentices shouted ap- 
plause. “ Is this hedgebantling to be fathered on you, Mr. Frank? ” 
“ It is necessary, by all laws of the drama, Madam,” said Frank, 
with a sly smile, “ that the speech and the speaker shall fit each other. 
Pass on, Earl Ordulf ; a more learned worthy waits.” 

Whereon, up came a fresh member of the procession; namely, no 
less a person than Vindex Brimblecombe, the ancient schoolmaster, 
with five-and-forty boys at his heels, who halting, pulled out his spec- 
tacles, and thus signified his forgiveness of his whilom broken head: — 
“ That the world should have been circumnavigated, ladies and 
gentles, were matter enough of jubilation to the student of Herodotus 
and Plato, Plinius and — ahem: much more when the circumnavi- 
gators are Britons ; more, again, when Damnonians.” 

“ Don’t swear, master,” said young Will Cary. 

“ Gulielme Cary, Gulielme Cary, hast thou forgotten thy ” 

“Whippings? Never, old lad! Go on; but let not the license of 
the scholar overtop the modesty of the Christian.” 

“More again, as I said, when, incolce , inhabitants of Devon; but, 
most of all, men of Bideford School. Oh renowned school! Oh 
schoolboys ennobled by fellowship with him! Oh most happy peda- 
gogue, to whom it has befallen to have chastised a circumnavigator, 
and, like another Chiron, trained another Hercules: yet more than 
Hercules, for he placed his pillars on the ocean shore, and then re- 
turned ; but my scholar’s voyage ” 

“ Hark how the old fox is praising himself all along on the sly,” 
said Cary. 

“ Mr. William, Mr. William, peace; — silentium, my graceless pupil. 
Urge the foaming steed, and strike terror into the rapid stag, but 
meddle not with matters too high for thee.” 

“He has given you the dor now, sir,” said Lady Bath; “let the 
old man say his say.” 


How Anyas came home 58 

“I bring, therefore, as my small contribution to this day’s feast; 
first a Latin epigram, as thus ” 

“ Latin? Let us hear it forthwith,” cried my Lady. 

And the old pedant mouthed out, — 

“Torriguiam Tamaris ne spernat ; Leighius addet 
Mox terras terris, inclyte Drake, tuis.” 

“ Neat, i’ faith, la!” Whereon all the rest, as in duty bound, 
approved also. 

“ This for the erudite: for vulgar ears the vernacular is more con- 
sonant, sympathetic, instructive; as thus: — 

‘ ‘ Famed Argo ship, that noble chip, by doughty Jason’s steering, 

Brought back to Greece the golden fleece, from Colchis home careering ; 
But now her fame is put to shame, while new Devonian Argo, 

Round earth doth run in wake of sun, and brings a wealthier cargo. ’ ’ 

“ Runs with a right fa-lal-la,” observed Cary; “ and would go nobly 
to a fiddle and a big drum.” 

“Ye Spaniards, quake! our doughty drake a royal swan is tested, 

On wing and oar, from shore to shore, the raging main who breasted : — 
But never needs to chant his deeds, like swan that lies a-dying, 

So far his name by trump of fame, around the sphere is flying.” 

“ Hillo ho! schoolmaster! ” shouted a voice from behind; “ move on, 
and make way for Father Neptune!” Whereon a whole storm of 
raillery fell upon the hapless pedagogue. 

“We waited for the parson’s alligator, but we wain’t for your’n.” 

“Allegory! my children, allegory!” shrieked the man of letters. 

“ What do ye call he an alligator for? He is but a poor little 
starved evat ! ” 

“ Out of the road, Old Custis! March on, Don Palmado!” 

These allusions to the usual instrument of torture in west country 
schools made the old gentleman wince; especially when they were 
followed home by — 

“ Who stole Admiral Grenvile’s brooms, because birch rods were 
dear? ” 

But proudly he shook his bald head, as a bull shakes off the flies, 
and returned to the charge once more. 

“Great Alexander, famed commander, wept and made a pother, 

At conquering only half the world, but Drake had conquer’d t’other; 

And Hercules to brink of seas! ” 


54 


Westward Ho ! 


“ Oh! ” 

And clapping both hands to the back of his neck, the schoolmaster 
began dancing frantically about, while his boys broke out tittering, 
“ O! the ochidore! look to the blue ochidore! WhoVe put ochidore 
to maister’s poll? ” 

It was too true: neatly inserted, as he stooped forward, between his 
neck and his collar, was a large live shore-crab, holding on tight with 
both hands. 

“ Gentles! good Christians! save me! I marerode! Incubo, vel ab 
incubo } opprimor! Satanas has me by the poll ! Help ! he tears my 
jugular; he wrings my neck, as he does to Dr. Faustus in the play. 
Confiteor ! — I confess! Satan, I defy thee! Good people, I confess! 
Baaavt^dfiat ! The truth will out. Mr. Francis Leigh wrote the epi- 
gram ! ” And diving through the crowd, the pedagogue vanished 
howling, while Father Neptune, crowned with sea-weeds, a trident in 
one hand, and a live dog-fish in the other, swaggered up the street, 
surrounded by a tall bodyguard of mariners, and followed by a great 
banner, on which was depicted a globe, with Drake’s ship sailing 
thereon upside down, and overwritten — 

< ‘ See every man the Pelican, 

Which round the world did go, 

While her stern-post was uppermost, 

And topmasts down below. 

And by the way she lost a day, 

Out of her log was stole : 

But Neptune kind, with favoring wind, 

Hath brought her safe and whole. ’ ’ 

“Now, lads!” cried Neptune; “hand me my parable that’s writ 
for me, and here goeth! ” And at the top of his bull-voice, he began 
roaring, — 

“I am King Neptune bold, 

The ruler of the seas ; 

I don’t understand much singing upon land, 

But I hope what I say will please. 

“Here be five Bideford men, 

Which have sail’d the world around, 

And I watch ’d them well, as they all can tell, 

And brought them home safe and sound. 

“For it is the men of Devon. 

To see them I take delight, 

Both to tack and to hull, and to heave and to pull, 

And to prove themselves in fight. 


55 


How Anyas came home 

“ Where be those Spaniards proud, 

That make their valiant boasts ; 

And think for to keep the poor Indians for their sheep, 

And to farm my golden coasts? 

“ ’Twas the devil and the Pope gave them 
My kingdom for their own : 

But my nephew Francis Drake, he caused them to quake, 

And he pick’d them to the bone. 

“For the sea my realm it is, 

As good Queen Bess’s is the land; 

So freely come again, all Merry Devon men, 

And there’s old Neptune’s hand.” 

“ Holla, boys! holla! Blow up, Triton, and bring forward the free- 
dom of the seas.” 

Triton, roaring through a conch, brought forward a cockle-shell 
full of salt-water, and delivered it solemnly to Amyas, who, of course, 
put a noble into it, and returned it after Grenvile had done the same. 

“ Holla, Dick Admiral! ” cried Neptune, who was pretty far gone 
in liquor; “ we knew thou hadst a right English heart in thee, for all 
thou standest there as taut as a Don who has swallowed his rapier.” 

“ Grammercy, stop thy bellowing, fellow, and on; for thou smellest 
vilely of fish.” 

“ Everything smells sweet in its right place. I’m going home.” 

“ I thought thou wert there all along, being already half-seas over,” 
said Cary. 

“Ay, right Upsee-Dutch; and that’s more than thou ever wilt be, 
thou ’long-shore stay-at-home. Why wast making sheep’s eyes at 
Mistress Salterne here, while my pretty little chuck of Burrough there 
was playing at shove-groat with Spanish doubloons? ” 

“ Go to the devil, sirrah! ” said Cary. Neptune had touched on a 
sore subject; and more cheeks than Amyas Leigh’s reddened at the 
hint. 

“Amen, if heaven so please!” and on rolled the monarch of the 
seas ; and so the pageant ended. 

The moment Amyas had an opportunity, he asked his brother 
Frank, somewhat peevishly, where Rose Salterne was. 

“ What! the mayor’s daughter? With her uncle, by Kilkhampton, 
I believe.” 

Now cunning Master Frank, whose daily wish was to “ seek peace 
and ensue it,” told Amyas this, because he must needs speak the truth: 


56 


Westward Ho ! 

« 

but he was purposed at the same time to speak as little truth as he 
could, for fear of accidents; and, therefore, omitted to tell his brother 
how that he, two days before, had entreated Rose Salterne herself to 
appear as the nymph of Torridge; which honor she, who had no ob- 
jection either to exhibit her pretty face, to recite pretty poetry, or to 
be trained thereto by the cynosure of North Devon, would have as- 
sented willingly, but that her father stopped the pretty project by a 
peremptory countermove, and packed her off, in spite of her tears, to 
the said uncle on the Atlantic cliffs; after which he went up to 
Burrough, and laughed over the whole matter with Mrs. Leigh. 

“ I am but a burgher, Mrs. Leigh, and you a lady of blood; but I 
am too proud to let any man say that Simon Salterne threw his 
daughter at your son’s head; — no; not if you were an empress! ” 

“And, to speak truth, Mr. Salterne, there are young gallants 
enough in the country quarreling about her pretty face every day, 
without making her a tourney-queen to tilt about.” 

Which was very true; for during the three years of Amyas’s ab- 
sence, Rose Salterne had grown into so beautiful a girl of eighteen, 
that half North Devon was mad about the “ Rose of Torridge,” as she 
was called; and there was not a young gallant for ten miles round 
(not to speak of her father’s clerks and ’prentices, who moped about 
after her like so many Malvolios, and treasured up the very parings 
of her nails) who would not have gone to Jerusalem to win her. So 
that all along the vales of Torridge and of Taw, and even away to 
Clovelly (for young Mr. Cary was one of the sick) , not a gay bachelor 
but was frowning on his fellows, and vieing with them in the fashion 
of his clothes, the set of his ruffs, the harness of his horse, the carriage 
of his hawks, the pattern of his sword-hilt; and those were golden 
days for all tailors and armorers, from Exmoor to Okehampton town. 
But of all those foolish young lads not one would speak to the other, 
either out hunting, or at the archery butts, or in the tilt-yard ; and my 
Lady Bath (who confessed that there was no use in bringing out her 
daughters where Rose Salterne was in the way) prophesied in her 
classical fashion that Rose’s wedding bid fair to be a very bridal of 
Atalanta, and feast of the Lapithae; and poor Mr. Will Cary (who al- 
ways blurted out the truth), when Old Salterne once asked him 
angrily, in Bideford Market, “ What a plague business had he making 
sheep’s eyes at his daughter? ” broke out before all bystanders, “And 
what a plague business had you, old boy, to throw such an apple of 
discord into our merry meetings hereabouts? If you choose to have 


57 


How Anyas c&me'home 

such a daughter, you must take the consequences, and be hanged to 
you.” To which Mr. Salterne answered with some truth, “ That she 
was none of his choosing, nor of Mr. Cary’s neither.” And so the dor 
being given, the belligerents parted laughing, but the war remained 
in statu quo ; and not a week passed but, by mysterious hands, some 
nosegay, or languishing sonnet, was conveyed into The Rose’s cham- 
ber, all which she stowed away, with the simplicity of a country girl, 
finding it mighty pleasant; and took all compliments quietly enough, 
probably because, on the authority of her mirror, she considered them 
no more than her due. 

And, now, to add to the general confusion, home was come young 
Amyas Leigh, more desperately in love with her than ever. For, as is 
the way with sailors (who after all are the truest lovers, as they are 
the finest fellows, God bless them, upon earth) , his lonely ship-watches 
had been spent in imprinting on his imagination, month after month, 
year after year, every feature and gesture and tone of the fair lass 
whom he had left behind him ; and that all the more intensely, because, 
beside his mother, he had no one else to think of, and was as pure as 
the day he was born, having been trained as many a brave young man 
was then, to look upon profligacy not as a proof of manhood, but as 
what the old Germans, and those Gortyneans who crowned the of- 
fender with wool, knew it to be, a cowardly and effeminate sin. 



Oohn QxenTiam 

of South Taw ton 


CHAPTER III. 

Of twso gentlemen of Wales, and how they 
hunted with the hounds , and yet ran 
with the 3eer. 

“I know that Deformed; he has been a vile thief this seven year; he goes up and 
down like a gentleman: I remember his name .” — Much Ado about Nothing. 

Amyas slept that night a tired and yet a troubled sleep; and his 
mother and Frank, as they bent over his pillow, could see that his 
brain was busy with many dreams. 

And no wonder; for over and above all the excitement of the day, 
the recollection of John Oxenham had taken strange possession of his 
mind ; and all that evening, as he sat in the bay- windowed room where 
he had seen him last, Amyas was recalling to himself every look and 
gesture of the lost adventurer, and wondering at himself for so doing, 
till he retired to sleep, only to renew the fancy in his dreams. At last 
he found himself, he knew not how, sailing westward ever, up the 
wake of the setting sun, in chase of a tiny sail, which was John Oxen- 
ham’s. Upon him was a painful sense that, unless he came up with 
her in time, something fearful would come to pass: but the ship would 
not sail. All around floated the sargasso beds, clogging her bows with 
their long snaky coils of weed; and still he tried to sail, and tried to 
fancy that he was sailing, till the sun went down, and all was utter 
dark. And then the moon arose, and in a moment John Oxenham’s 
ship was close aboard; her sails were torn and fluttering; the pitch was 
streaming from her sides; her bulwarks were rotting to decay. And 
what was that line of dark objects dangling along the main-yard? — A 
line of hanged men! And, horror of horrors, from the yard-arm close 
above him, John Oxenham’s corpse looked down with grave-light 
eyes, and beckoned and pointed, as if to show him his way, and strove 
to speak, and could not, and pointed still, not forward, but back along 
their course. And when Amyas looked back, behold, behind him was 


59 


Two gentlemen of Wales 

the snow range of the Andes glittering in the moon, and he knew that 
he was in the South Seas once more, and that all America was between 
him and home. And still the corpse kept pointing back, and back, 
and looking at him with yearning eyes of agony, and lips which longed 
to tell some awful secret; till he sprang up, and woke with a shout 
of terror, and found himself lying in the little coved chamber in 
dear old Burrough, with the gray autumn morning already stealing 
in. 

Feverish and excited, he tried in vain to sleep again; and after an 
hour’s tossing, rose and dressed, and started for a bathe on his beloved 
old pebble ridge. As he passed his mother’s door, he could not help 
looking in. The dim light of morning showed him the bed; but its 
pillow had not been pressed that night. His mother, in her long white 
night-dress, was kneeling at the other end of the chamber at her prie- 
dieu, absorbed in devotion. Gently he slipped in without a word, and 
knelt down at her side. She turned, smiled, passed her arm around 
him, and went on silently with her prayers. Why not? They were 
for him, and he kne,w it, and prayed also; and his prayers were for her, 
and for poor lost John Oxenham, and all his vanished crew. 

At last she rose, and standing above him, parted the yellow locks 
from off his brow, and looked long and lovingly into his face. There 
was nothing to be spoken, for there was nothing to be concealed be- 
tween these two souls as clear as glass. Each knew all which the 
other meant; each knew that its own thoughts were known. At last 
the mutual gaze was over; she stooped and kissed him on the brow, and 
was in the act to turn away, as a tear dropped on his forehead. Her 
little bare feet were peeping out from under her dress. He bent 
down and kissed them again and again ; and then looking up, as if to 
excuse himself, — 

“ You have such pretty feet, mother! ” 

Instantly, with a woman’s instinct, she had hidden them. She had 
been a beauty once, as I said; and though her hair was gray, and her 
roses had faded long ago, she was beautiful still, in all eyes which 
saw deeper than the mere outward red and white. 

“ Your dear father used to say so, thirty years ago.” 

“And I say so still: you always were beautiful; you are beautiful 
now.” 

“ What is that to you, silly boy? Will you play the lover with an 
old mother? Go and take your walk, and think of younger ladies, 
if you can find any worthy of you.” 


60 


Westward Ho ! 

And so the son went forth, and the mother returned to her prayers. 

He walked down to the pebble ridge, where the surges of the bay 
have defeated their own fury, by rolling up in the course of ages a 
rampart of gray boulder-stones, some two miles long, as cunningly 
curved, and smoothed, and fitted, as if the work had been done by 
human hands, which protects from the high tides of spring and autumn 
a fertile sheet of smooth, alluvial turf. Sniffing the keen salt air like 
a young sea-dog, he stripped and plunged into the breakers, and dived, 
and rolled, and tossed about the foam with stalwart arms, till he heard 
himself hailed from off the shore, and looking up, saw standing on the 
top of the rampart the tall figure of his cousin Eustace. 

Amyas was half-disappointed at his coming; for, love-lorn rascal, 
he had been dreaming all the way thither of Rose Salterne, and had 
no wish for a companion who would prevent his dreaming of her all 
the way back. Nevertheless, not having seen Eustace for three years, 
it was but civil to scramble out and dress, while his cousin walked up 
and down upon the turf inside. 

Eustace Leigh was the son of a younger brother of Leigh of Bur- 
rough, who had more or less cut himself off from his family, and in- 
deed from his countrymen, by remaining a Papist. True, though 
born a Papist, he had not always been one; for, like many of the 
gentry, he had become a Protestant under Edward the Sixth, and then 
a Papist again under Mary. But, to his honor be it said, at that point 
he had stopped, having too much honesty to turn Protestant a second 
time, as hundreds did, at Elizabeth’s accession. So a Papist he re- 
mained, living out of the way of the world in a great, rambling, dark 
house, still called “ Chapel,” on the Atlantic cliffs, in Moorwinstow 
parish, not far from Sir Richard Grenvile’s house of Stow. The 
penal laws never troubled him; for, in the first place, they never trou- 
bled any one who did not make conspiracy and rebellion an integral 
doctrine of his religious creed; and next, they seldom troubled even 
them, unless, fired with the glory of martyrdom, they bullied the long- 
suffering of Elizabeth and her council into giving them their deserts, 
and, like poor Father Southwell in after years, insisted on being 
hanged, whether Burleigh liked or not. Moreover, in such a no- 
man’s-land and end-of-all-the-earth was that old house at Moor- 
winstow, that a dozen conspiracies might have been hatched there 
without any one hearing of it ; and Jesuits and seminary priests skulked 
in and out all the year round, unquestioned though unblest; and found 
a sort of piquant pleasure, like naughty boys who have crept into the 


61 


Two gentlemen of Wales 

store-closet, in living in mysterious little dens in a lonely turret, and 
going up through a trap-door to celebrate mass in a secret chamber in 
the roof, where they were allowed by the powers that were to play 
as much as they chose at persecuted saints, and preach about hiding in 
dens and caves of the earth. For once, when the zealous parson of 
Moorwinstow, having discovered (what everybody knew already) the 
existence of “ mass priests and their idolatry ” at Chapel house, made 
formal complaint thereof to Sir Richard, and called on him, as the 
nearest justice of the peace, to put in force the Act of the fourteenth 
of Elizabeth, that worthy knight only rated him soundly for a fan- 
tastical puritan, and bade him mind his own business, if he wished not 
to make the place too hot for him ; whereon ( for the temporal author- 
ities, happily for the peace of England, kept in those days a some-, 
what tight hand upon the spiritual ones) the worthy parson sub- 
sided, — for, after all, Mr. Thomas Leigh paid his tithes regularly 
enough, — and was content, as he expressed it, to bow his head in the 
house of Rimmon like Naaman of old, by eating Mr. Leigh’s dinners 
as often as he was invited, and ignoring the vocation of old Father 
Francis, who sat opposite to him, dressed as a layman, and calling 
himself the young gentleman’s pedagogue. 

But the said birds of ill omen had a very considerable lien on the 
conscience of poor Mr. Thomas Leigh, the father of Eustace, in the 
form of certain lands once belonging to the Abbey of Hartland. He 
more than half believed that he should be lost for holding those lands; 
but he did not believe it wholly, and, therefore, he did not give them 
up; which was the case, as poor Mary Tudor found to her sorrow, 
with most of her “ Catholic ” subjects, whose consciences, while they 
compelled them to return to the only safe fold of Mother Church 
( extra quarn nulla salus ) , by no means compelled them to disgorge the 
wealth of which they had plundered that only hope of their salvation. 
Most of them, however, like poor Tom Leigh, felt the abbey rents burn 
in their purses; and, as John Bull generally does in a difficulty, com- 
promised the matter by a second folly (as if two wrong things made 
one right one) and petted foreign priests, and listened, or pretended 
not to listen, to their plottings and their practising^; and gave up a 
son here, and a son there, as a sort of a sin-offering and scape-goat, 
to be carried off to Douay, or Rheims, or Rome, and trained as a 
seminary priest; in plain English, to be taught the science of villany, 
on the motive of superstition. One of such hapless scape-goats, and 
children who had been cast into the fire to Moloch, was Eustace Leigh, 


62 


Westward Ho I 

whom his father had sent, giving the fruit of his body for the sin of his 
soul, to be made a liar of at Rheims. 

And a very fair liar he had become. Not that the lad was a bad 
fellow at heart; but he had been chosen by the harpies at home, on 
account of his “peculiar vocation ”; in plain English, because the 
wily priests had seen in him certain capacities of vague hysterical fear 
of the unseen (the religious sentiment, we call it nowadays), and 
with them that tendency to be a rogue, which superstitious men always 
have. He was now a tall, handsome, light-complexioned man, with a 
huge upright forehead, a very small mouth, and a dry and set ex- 
pression of face, which was always trying to get free, or rather to 
seem free, and indulge in smiles and dimples, which were proper; for 
one ought to have Christian love, and if one had love one ought to be 
cheerful, and when people were cheerful they smiled; and therefore 
he would smile, and tried to do so ; but his charity prepense looked no 
more alluring than malice prepense would have done ; and, had he not 
been really a handsome fellow, many a woman who raved about his 
sweetness would have likened his frankness to that of a skeleton danc- 
ing in fetters, and his smiles to the grins thereof. 

He had returned to England about a month before, in obedience 
to the proclamation which had been set forth for that purpose (and 
certainly not before it was needed), that, “whosoever had children, 
wards, etc., in the parts beyond the seas, should send in their names 
to the ordinary, and within four months call them home again.” So 
Eustace was now staying with his father at Chapel, having, neverthe- 
less, his private matters to transact on behalf of the virtuous society 
by whom he had been brought up; one of which private matters had 
brought him to Bideford the night before. 

So he sat down beside Amyas on the pebbles, and looked at him all 
over out of the corners of his eyes very gently, as if he did not wish 
to hurt him, or even the flies on his back; and Amyas faced right 
round, and looked him full in the face, with the heartiest of smiles, and 
held out a lion’s paw, which Eustace took rapturously, and a great 
shaking of hands ensued; Amyas gripping with a great round fist, and 
a quiet quiver thereof, as much as to say, “ I am glad to see you; ” and 
Eustace pinching hard with quite straight fingers, and sawing the air 
violently up and down, as much as to say, “ Don't you see how glad I 
am to see you? ” A very different greeting from the former. 

“ Hold hard, old lad,” said Amyas, “ before you break my elbow. 
And where do you come from? ” 


68 


Two gentlemen of Wales 

“ From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and 
down in it,” said he, with a little smile and nod of mysterious self- 
importance. 

“ Like the devil, eh? Well, every man has his pattern. How is 
my uncle? ” 

Now, if there was one man on earth above another, of whom Eustace 
Leigh stood in dread, it was his cousin Amyas. In the first place, he 
knew Amyas could have killed him with a blow; and there are natures, 
who, instead of rejoicing in the strength of men of greater prowess 
than themselves, look at such with irritation, dread, at last, spite; ex- 
pecting, perhaps, that the stronger will do to them what they feel they 
might have done in his place. Every one, perhaps, has the same 
envious, cowardly devil haunting about his heart; but the brave men, 
though they be very sparrows, kick him out; the cowards keep him, and 
foster him ; and so did poor Eustace Leigh. 

Next, he could not help feeling that Amyas despised him. They 
had not met for three years; but before Amyas went, Eustace never 
could argue with him ; simply because Amyas treated him as beneath 
argument. No doubt he was often rude and unfair enough; but the 
whole mass of questions concerning the unseen world, which the priests 
had stimulated in his cousin’s mind into an unhealthy fungus crop, 
were to Amyas simply, as he expressed it, 44 wind and moonshine;” 
and he treated his cousin as a sort of harmless lunatic, and, as they say 
in Devon, 44 half-baked.” And Eustace knew it; and knew, too, that 
his cousin did him an injustice. 44 He used to undervalue me,” said 
he to himself ; 44 let us see whether he does not find me a match for him 
now.” And then went off into an agony of secret contrition for his 
self-seeking and his forgetting that 44 the glory of God, and not his 
own exaltation,” was the object of his existence. 

There, dear readers, Ex pede Herculem ; I cannot tire myself or 
you (especially in this book) with any wire-drawn soul-dissections. I 
have tried to hint to you two opposite sorts of men. The one trying 
to be good with all his might and main, according to certain approved 
methods and rules, which he has got by heart; and like a weak oars- 
man, feeling and fingering his spiritual muscles over all day, to see 
if they are growing. The other, not even knowing whether he is good 
or not, but just doing the right thing without thinking about it, as 
simply as a little child, because the Spirit of God is with him. If you 
cannot see the great gulf fixed between the two, I trust that you will 
discover it some day. 


64 


Westward Ho ! 

But in justice be it said, all this came upon Eustace, not because 
he was a Romanist, but because he was educated by the J esuits. Had 
he been saved from them, he might have lived and died as simple and 
honest a gentleman as his brothers, who turned out like true English- 
men (as did all the Romish laity) to face the great Armada, and one 
of whom was fighting at that very minute under St. Leger in Ireland, 
and as brave and loyal a soldier as those Roman Catholics whose noble 
blood has stained every Crimean battle-field; but his fate was ap- 
pointed otherwise ; and the Upas-shadow which has blighted the whole 
Romish Church, blighted him also. 

“Ah, my dearest cousin! ” said Eustace, “ how disappointed I was 
this morning at finding I had arrived just a day too late to witness 
your triumph ! But I hastened to your home as soon as I could, and 
learning from your mother that I should find you here, hurried down 
to bid you welcome again to Devon.” 

“ Well, old lad, it does look very natural to see you. I often used 
to think of you walking the deck o’ nights. Uncle and the girls are 
all right, then? But is the old pony dead yet? And how’s Dick the 
smith, and Nancy? Grown a fine maid by now, I warrant. ’Slid, 
it seems half a life that I’ve been away.” 

“And you really thought of your poor cousin? Be sure that he, 
too, thought of you, and offered up nightly his weak prayers for your 
safety (doubtless, not without avail) to those saints, to whom would 
that you ” 

“ Halt there, coz. If they are half as good fellows as you and I 
take them for, they’ll help me without asking.” 

“ They have helped you, Amyas.” 

“ Maybe ; I’d have done as much, I’m sure, for them, if I’d been in 
their place.” 

“And do you not feel, then, that you owe a debt of gratitude to 
them; and, above all, to her, whose intercessions have, I doubt not, 
availed for your preservation? Her, the star of the sea, the all-com- 
passionate guide of the mariner? ” 

“ Humph! ” said Amyas. “ Here’s Frank; let him answer.” 

And, as he spoke, up came Frank, and after due greetings, sat 
down beside them on the ridge. 

“ I say, brother, here’s Eustace trying already to convert me; and 
telling me that I owe all my luck to the Blessed Virgin’s prayers 
for me.” 

“ It may be so,” said Frank; “ at least you owe it to the prayers 


65 


Two gentlemen of Wales 

of that most pure and peerless virgin, by whose commands you sailed; 
the sweet incense of whose orisons have gone up for you daily, and 
for whose sake you were preserved from flood and foe, that you might 
spread the fame and advance the power of the spotless championess 
of truth, and right, and freedom, — Elizabeth, your queen.” 

Amyas answered this rhapsody, which would have been then both 
fashionable and sincere, by a loyal chuckle. Eustace smiled meekly: 
but answered somewhat venomously nevertheless: 

“ I, at least, am certain that I speak the truth, when I call my 
patroness a virgin undefiled.” 

Both the brothers’ brows clouded at once. Amyas, as he lay on his 
back on the pebbles, said quietly to the gulls over his head: 

“ I wonder what the Frenchman, whose head I cut off at the Azores, 
thinks by now about all that.” 

“ Cut off a Frenchman’s head? ” said Frank. 

“Yes, faith; and so fleshed my maiden sword. I’ll tell you. It 
was in some tavern; I and George Drake had gone in, and there sat 
this Frenchman, with his sword on the table, ready for a quarrel (I 
found afterward he was a noted bully), and begins with us loudly 
enough about this and that; but, after a while, by the instigation of the 
devil, what does he vent but a dozen slanders against her Majesty’s 
honor, one a top of the other. I was ashamed to hear them, and I 
should be more ashamed to repeat them.” 

“ I have heard enough of such,” said Frank. “ They come mostly 
through lewd rascals about the French ambassador, who have been 
bred ( God help them ) among the filthy vices of that Medicean Court, 
in which the Queen of Scots had her schooling; and can only perceive 
in a virtuous freedom, a cloke for licentiousness like their own. Let 
the curs bark; Honi soit qui mal y pense is our motto, and shall be 
for ever.” 

“ But I didn’t let the cur bark; for I took him by the ears, to show 
him out into the street. Whereon he got to his sword, and I to mine; 
and a very near chance I had of never bathing on the pebble-ridge 
more; for the fellow did not fight with edge and buckler, like a Chris- 
tian, but had some newfangled French devil’s device of scryming and 
foining with his point, ha’ing and stamping, and tracing at me, that I 
expected to be full of eyelet-holes ere I could close with him.” 

“ Thank God that you are safe, then! ” said Frank. “ I know that 
play well enough, and dangerous enough it is.” 

“ Of course you know it; but I didn’t, more’s the pity.” 


66 Westward Ho ! 

“ Well, I’ll teach it thee, lad, as well as Rowland Yorke himself, 


“ ‘Thy fincture, carricade, and sly passata, 

Thy stramazon, and resolute stoecata, 

Wiping maudritta, closing embrocata, 

And all the cant of the honorable fencing mystery.' ” 

“ Rowland Yorke? Who’s he, then? ” 

“A very roystering rascal, who is making good profit in London 
just now by teaching this very art of fence; and is as likely to have 
his mortal thread clipped in a tavern brawl, as thy Frenchman. But 
how did you escape his pinking iron? ” 

“ How? Had it through my left arm before I could look round; 
and at that I got mad, and leaped upon him, and caught him by the 
wrist, and then had a fair side-blow; and, as fortune would have it, 
off tumbled his head on to the table, and there was an end of his 
slanders.” 

“ So perish all her enemies!” said Frank; and Eustace who had 
been trying not to listen, rose and said: 

“ I trust that you do not number me among them? ” 

“As you speak, I do, coz,” said Frank. “ But for your own sake, 
let me advise you to put faith in the true report of those who have 
daily experience of their mistress’s excellent virtue, as they have of 
the sun’s shining, and of the earth’s bringing forth fruit, and not in 
the tattle of a few cowardly back-stair rogues, who wish to curry 
favor with the Guises. Come, we will say no more. Walk round 
with us by Appledore, and then home to breakfast.” 

But Eustace declined, having immediate business, he said, in 
Northam town, and then in Bideford; and so left them to lounge for 
another half hour on the beach, and then walk across the smooth sheet 
of turf to the little white fishing village, which stands some two miles 
above the bar, at the meeting of the Torridge and the Taw. 

Now it came to pass that Eustace Leigh, as we have seen, told his 
cousins that he was going to Northam: but he did not tell them that 
his point was really the same as their own, namely, Appledore; and, 
therefore, after having satisfied his conscience by going as far as the 
very nearest house in Northam village, he struck away sharp to the 
left across the fields, repeating I know not what to the Blessed Virgin 
all the way; whereby he went several miles out of his road; and also, 
as is the wont of crooked spirits, Jesuits especially (as three centuries 
sufficiently testify), only outwitted himself. For his cousins going 


TWo gentlemen of Wales 67 

merrily, like honest men, along the straight road across the turf, 
arrived in Appledore, opposite the little “ Mariner’s Rest ” Inn, just 
in time to see what Eustace had taken so much trouble to hide from 
them, namely, four of Mr. Thomas Leigh’s horses standing at the 
door, held by his groom, saddles and mail-bags on back, and mounting 
three of them, Eustace Leigh and two strange gentlemen. 

“ There’s one lie already this morning,” growled Amyas; “ he told 
us he was going to Northam.” 

“And we do not know that he has not been there,” blandly sug- 
gested Frank. 

“ Why, you are as bad a J esuit as he, to help him out with such a 
fetch.” 

“ He may have changed his mind.” 

“ Bless your pure imagination, my sweet boy,” said Amyas, laying 
his great hand on Frank’s head, and mimicking his mother’s manner. 
“ I say, dear Frank, let’s step into this shop and buy a pennyworth 
of whipcord.” 

“ What do you want with whipcord, man? ” 

“To spin my top, to be sure.” 

“ Top? how long hast had a top? ” 

“ I’ll buy one, then, and save my conscience; but the upshot of this 
sport I must see. Why may not I have an excuse ready made as well 
as Master Eustace? ” 

So saying, he pulled Frank into the little shop, unobserved by the 
party at the inn-door. 

“ What strange cattle has he been importing now? Look at that 
three-legged fellow, trying to get aloft on the wrong side. How he 
claws at his horse’s ribs, like a cat scratching an elder stem ! ” 

The three-legged man was a tall, meek-looking person, who had 
bedizened himself with gorgeous garments, a great feather, and a 
sword so long and broad, that it differed little in size from the very 
thin and stiff shanks, between which it wandered uncomfortably. 

“ Young David in Saul’s weapons,” said Frank. “ He had better 
not go in them, for he certainly has not proved them.” 

“ Look, if his third leg is not turned into a tail ! Why does not 
some one in charity haul in half a yard of his belt for him? ” 

It was too true; the sword, after being kicked out three or four 
times from its uncomfortable post between his legs, had returned un- 
conquered; and the hilt getting a little too far back by reason of the 
too great length of the belt, the weapon took up its post triumphantly 


68 


Westward Ho ! 

behind, standing out point in air, a tail contest, amid the tittering of 
the ostlers, and the cheers of the sailors. 

At last the poor man, by dint of a chair, was mounted safely, while 
his fellow stranger, a burly, coarse-looking man, equally gay, and 
rather more handy, made so fierce a rush at his saddle, that like 
“ vaulting ambition who o’erleaps his selle, ,, he “ fell on t’other side: ” 
or would have fallen, had he not been brought up short by the shoul- 
ders of the ostler at his off-stirrup. In which shock off came hat and 
feather. 

“ Pardie, the bulldog-faced one is a fighting man. Dost see, 
Frank? he has had his head broken.” 

“ That scar came not, my son, but by a pair of most Catholic and 
apostolic scissors. My gentle buzzard, that is a priest’s tonsure.” 

“ Hang the dog! O, that the sailors may but see it, and put him 
over the quay head. I’ve a half mind to go and do it myself.” 

“ My dear Amyas,” said Frank, laying two fingers on his arm, 
“ these men, whosoever they are, are the guests of our uncle, and 
therefore the guests of our family. Flam gained little by publishing 
Noah’s shame; neither shall we, by publishing our uncle’s.” 

“ Murrain on you, old Franky, you never let a man speak his 
mind, and shame the devil.” 

“ I have lived long enough in courts, old Amyas, without a murrain 
on you, to have found out first, that it is not so easy to shame the 
devil ; and secondly, that it is better to outwit him ; and the only way 
to do that, sweet chuck, is very often not to speak your mind at all. 
We will go down and visit them at Chapel in a day or two, and see if 
we cannot serve these reynards as the badger did the fox, when he 
found him in his hole, and could not get him out by evil savors.” 

“ How then? ” 

“ Stuck a sweet nosegay in the door, which turned Reynard’s stom- 
ach at once ; and so overcame evil with good.” 

“Well, thou art too good for this world, that’s certain; so we 
will go home to breakfast. Those rogues are out of sight by now.” 

Nevertheless, Amyas was not proof against the temptation of going 
over to the inn-door, and asking who were the gentlemen who went 
with Mr. Leigh. 

“ Gentlemen of Wales,” said the ostler, “ who came last night in a 
pinnace from Milford-haven, and their names, Mr. Morgan Evans 
and Mr. Evan Morgans.” 

“ Mr. Judas Iscariot and Mr. Iscariot Judas,” said Amyas between 


69 


Two gentlemen of Wales 

his teeth, and then observed aloud, “ that the Welsh gentlemen seemed 
rather poor horsemen.” 

“ So I said to Mr. Leigh’s groom, your worship. But he says that 
those parts be so uncommon rough and mountainous, that the poor 
gentlemen, you see, being enforced to hunt on foot, have no such op- 
portunities as young gentlemen hereabout, like your worship ; whom 
God preserve, and send a virtuous lady, and one worthy of you.” 

“ Thou hast a villanously glib tongue, fellow! ” said Amyas, who 
was thoroughly out of humor; “ and a sneaking down visage too, when 
I come to look at you. I doubt but you are a Papist too, I do ! ” 

“ Well, sir! and what if I am! I trust I don’t break the Queen’s laws 
by that. If I don’t attend Northam church, I pay my month’s shilling 
for the use of the poor, as the Act directs; and beyond that, neither 
you nor any man dare demand of me.” 

“ Dare! Act directs! You rascally lawyer, you! and whence does 
an ostler like you get your shilling to pay withal? Answer me.” 
The examinate found it so difficult to answer the question, that he 
suddenly became afflicted with deafness. 

“ Do you hear? ” roared Amyas, catching at him with his lion’s 
paw. 

“ Yes, missus; anon, anon, missus! ” quoth he to an imaginary land- 
lady inside, and twisting under Amyas’s hand like an eel, vanished into 
the house, while Frank got the hot-headed youth away. 

“ What a plague is one to do, then? That fellow was a Papist 
spy ! ” 

“ Of course he was ! ” said F rank. 

“ Then, what is one to do, if the whole country is full of them? ” 

“ Not to make fools of ourselves about them; and so leave them to 
make fools of themselves.” 

“ That’s all very fine: but — well, I shall remember the villain’s face 
if I see him again.” 

“ There is no harm in that,” said Frank. 

“ Glad you think so.” 

“ Don’t quarrel with me, Amyas, the first day.” 

“ Quarrel with thee, my darling old fellow! I had sooner kiss 
the dust off thy feet, if I were worthy of it. So now away home; my 
inside cries cupboard.” 

In the meanwhile Messrs. Evans and Morgans were riding away, 
as fast as the rough by-lanes would let them, along the fresh coast of 
the bay, steering carefully clear of Northam town on the one hand, 


70 


Westward Ho ! 

and on the other, of Portledge, where dwelt that most Protestant 
justice of the peace, Mr. Coffin. And it was well for them that 
neither Amyas Leigh, or indeed any other loyal Englishman, was by 
when they entered, as they shortly did, the lonely woods which stretch 
along the southern wall of the bay. For there Eustace Leigh pulled 
up short ; and both he and his groom, leaping from their horses, knelt 
down humbly in the wet grass, and implored the blessing of the two 
valiant gentlemen of Wales, who, having graciously bestowed it with 
three fingers apiece, became thenceforth no longer Morgan Evans 
and Evan Morgans, Welshmen and gentlemen; but Father Parsons 
and Father Campian, Jesuits, and gentlemen in no sense in which 
that word is applied in this book. 

After a few minutes, the party were again in motion, ambling stead- 
ily and cautiously along the high table-land, toward Moorwinstow in 
the west ; while beneath them on the right, at the mouth of rich-wooded 
glens, opened vistas of the bright blue bay, and beyond it the sand- 
hills of Braunton, and the ragged rocks of Morte; while far away to 
the north and west the lonely isle of Lundy hung like a soft gray cloud. 

But they were not destined to reach their point as peaceably as 
they could have wished. For just as they got opposite Clovelly Dike, 
the huge old Roman encampment which stands about mid-way in 
their journey, they heard a halloo from the valley below, answered by 
a fainter one far ahead. At which, like a couple of rogues (as indeed 
they were), Father Campian and Father Parsons looked at each 
other, and then both stared round at the wild, desolate, open pasture 
(for the country was then all unenclosed), and the great dark furze- 
grown banks above their heads; and Campian remarked gently to 
Parsons, that this was a very dreary spot, and likely enough for 
robbers. 

“A likelier spot for us, Father,” said Eustace, punning. “ The 
Old Romans knew what they were about when they put their legions 
up aloft here to overlook land and sea for miles away; and we may 
thank them some day for their leavings. The banks are all sound; 
there is plenty of good water inside; and ” (added he in Latin), “ in 
case our Spanish friends — you understand? ” 

“ Pauca verba, my son! ” said Campian: but as he spoke, up from 
the ditch close beside him, as if rising out of the earth, burst through 
the furze-bushes an armed cavalier. 

“ Pardon, gentlemen! ” shouted he, as the Jesuit and his horse re- 
coiled against the groom. “ Stand, for your lives! ” 


Ttoo gentlemen of Wales n 

“Mater ccelorum !” moaned Campian: while Parsons, who, as all 
the world knows, was a blustering bully enough (at least with his 
tongue) , asked: “ What a murrain right had he to stop honest folks 
on the Queen’s highway ? ” confirming the same with a mighty oath, 
which he set down as peccatum veniale , on account of the sudden 
necessity; nay, indeed fraus pia , as proper to support the character of 
that valiant gentleman of Wales, Mr. Evan Morgans. But the horse- 
man, taking no notice of his hint, dashed across the nose of Eustace 
Leigh’s horse, with a “ Hillo, old lad! where ridest so early?” and 
peering down for a moment into the ruts of the narrow track-way, 
struck spurs into his horse, shouting, “A fresh slot! right away for 
Hartland! Forward, gentlemen all! follow, follow, follow! ” 

“ Who is this roysterer? ” asked Parsons, loftily. 

“Will Cary, of Clovelly; an awful heretic: and here come more 
behind.” 

And as he spoke, four or five more mounted gallants plunged in and 
out of the great dikes, and thundered on behind the party; whose 
horses, quite understanding what game was up, burst into full gallop, 
neighing and squealing; and in another minute the hapless Jesuits 
were hurling along over moor and moss after a “ hart of grease.” 

Parsons, who, though a vulgar bully, was no coward, supported the 
character of Mr. Evan Morgans well enough; and he would have 
really enjoyed himself, had he not been in agonies of fear lest those 
precious saddle-bags in front of him should break from their lashings, 
and rolling to the earth, expose to the hoofs of heretic horses, perhaps 
to the gaze of heretic eyes, such a cargo of bulls, dispensations, secret 
correspondences, seditious tracts, and so forth, that at the very thought 
of their being seen, his head felt loose upon his shoulders. But the 
future martyr behind him, Mr. Morgan Evans, gave himself up at 
once to abject despair, and as he bumped and rolled along, sought 
vainly for comfort in professional ejaculations in the Latin tongue. 

“Mater intemerata! Eripe me e — Ugh! I am down! Adheesit 
pavimento venter! — No! I am not! Et dilectum tuum e potestate 
cams — Ah? Audisti me inter cornua unicornium! — Put this, too, 
down in — ugh! — thy account in favor of my poor — oh, sharpness of 
this saddle! Oh whither, barbarous islanders! ” 

Now riding on his quarter, not in the rough trackway like a cock- 
ney, but through the soft heather like a sportsman, was a very gallant 
knight whom we all know well by this time, Richard Grenvile by 
name; who had made Mr. Cary and the rest his guests the night be- 


72 


Westward Ho ! 

fore, and then ridden out with them at five o’clock that morning, after 
the wholesome early ways of the time, to rouse a well-known stag in 
the glens at Buckish, by help of Mr. Coffin’s hounds from Portledge. 
Who being as good a Latiner as Campian’s self, and overhearing both 
the scraps of psalm and “ the barbarous islanders,” pushed his horse 
alongside of Mr. Eustace Leigh, and at the first check said, with two 
low bows toward the two strangers — 

“ I hope Mr. Leigh will do me the honor of introducing me to his 
guests. I should be sorry, and Mr. Cary also, that any gentle 
strangers should become neighbors of ours, even for a day, without 
our knowing who they are who honor our western Thule with a visit ; 
and showing them ourselves all due requital for the compliment of 
their presence.” 

After which, the only thing which poor Eustace could do (especially 
as it was spoken loud enough for all bystanders), was to introduce in 
due form Mr. Evan Morgans and Mr. Morgan Evans, who, hearing 
the name, and what was worse, seeing the terrible face with its quiet 
searching eye, felt like a brace of partridge-poults cowering in the 
stubble, with a hawk hanging ten feet over their heads. 

“ Gentlemen,” said Sir Richard blandly, cap in hand; “ I fear that 
your mails must have been somewhat in your way in this unexpected 
gallop. If you will permit my groom, who is behind, to disencumber 
you of them and carry them to Chapel, you will both confer an honor 
on me, and be enabled yourselves to see the mort more pleasantly.” 

A twinkle of fun, in spite of all his efforts, played about good Sir 
Richard’s eye as he gave this searching hint. The two Welsh gentle- 
men stammered out clumsy thanks; and pleading great haste and 
fatigue from a long journey, contrived to fall to the rear, and vanish 
with their guides, as soon as the slot had been recovered. 

“ Will! ” said Sir Richard, pushing alongside of young Cary. 

“ Your worship? ” 

" Jesuits, Will!” 

“ May the father of lies fly away with them over the nearest cliff! ” 

“ He will not do that while this Irish trouble is about. Those fel- 
lows are come to practise here for Saunders and Desmond.” 

“ Perhaps they have a consecrated banner in their bag, the scoun- 
drels! Shall I and young Coffin on and stop them? Hard if the 
honest men may not rob the thieves once in a way.” 

“No; give the devil rope, and he will hang himself. Keep thy 
tongue at home, and thine eyes too, Will.” 


73 


Two gentlemen of Wales 

“ How then? ” 

“ Let Clovelly beach be watched night and day like any mouse-hole. 
No one can land round Harty point with these south-westers. Stop 
every fellow who has the ghost of an Irish brogue, come he in or go 
he out, and send him over to me.” 

“ Some one should guard Bude haven, sir.” 

“ Leave that to me. Now then, forward, gentlemen all, or the stag 
will take the sea at the Abbey.” 

And on they crashed down the Hartland glens, through the oak- 
scrub and the great crown-ferns; and the baying of the slow-hound 
and the tantaras of the horn died away farther and fainter toward the 
blue Atlantic, while the conspirators, with lightened hearts, pricked 
fast across Bursdon upon their evil errand. But Eustace Leigh had 
other thoughts and other cares than the safety of his father’s two 
mysterious guests, important as that was in his eyes; for he was 
one of the many who had drunk in sweet poison (though in his 
case it could hardly be called sweet) from the magic glances of the 
Rose of Torridge. He had seen her in the town, and for the first 
time in his life fallen utterly in love; and now that she had come 
down close to his father’s house, he looked on her as a lamb fallen 
unawares into the jaws of the greedy wolf, which he felt himself to be. 
For Eustace’s love had little or nothing of chivalry, self-sacrifice, or 
purity in it; those were virtues which were not taught at Rheims. 
Careful as the Jesuits were over the practical morality of their pupils, 
this severe restraint had little effect in producing real habits of self- 
control. What little Eustace had learned of women from them, was 
as base and vulgar as the rest of their teaching. What could it be 
else, if instilled by men educated in the schools of Italy and France, 
in the age which produced the foul novels of Cinthio and Bandello, 
and compelled Rabelais, in order to escape the rack and stake, to hide 
the light of his great wisdom, not beneath a bushel, but beneath a 
dunghill $» the age in which the Romish Church had made marriage a 
legalized tyranny, and the laity, by a natural and pardonable revul- 
sion, had exalted adultery into a virtue and a science? That all love 
was lust; that all women had their price; that profligacy, though an 
ecclesiastical sin, was so pardonable, if not necessary, as to be hardly 
a moral sin, were notions which Eustace must needs have gathered 
from the hints of his preceptors; for their written works bear to this 
day fullest and foulest testimony that such was their opinion; and that 
their conception of the relation of the sexes was really not a whit 


74 


Westward Ho 4 ! 

higher than that of the profligate laity who confessed to them. He 
longed to marry Rose Salterne, with a wild selfish fury; but only that 
he might be able to claim her as his own property, and keep all others 
from her. Of her as a co-equal and ennobling helpmate; as one in 
whose honor, glory, growth of heart and soul, his own were inex- 
tricably wrapped up, he had never dreamed. Marriage would pre- 
vent God from being angry with that, with which otherwise He might 
be angry; and therefore the sanction of the Church was the more 
“ probable and safe ” course. But as yet his suit was in very embryo. 
He could not even tell whether Rose knew of his love ; and he wasted 
miserable hours in maddening thoughts, and tossed all night upon his 
sleepless bed, and rose next morning fierce and pale, to invent fresh 
excuses for going over to her uncle’s house, and lingering about the 
fruit which he dared not snatch. 



.A. -Ship in Hie Queen’s Navy- 




CHAPTER IV. 

Tfie two ways of being crossed in love - 

“I could not love thee, dear, so much, 

Loved I not honor more.” — Lovelace. 

And what all this while has become of the fair breaker of so many 
hearts, to whom I have not yet even introduced my readers? 

She was sitting in the little farmhouse beside the mill, buried in the 
green depths of the Valley of Combe, half-way between Stow and 
Chapel, sulking as much as her sweet nature would let her, at being 
thus shut out from all the grand doings at Bideford, and forced to 
keep a Martinmas Lent in that far western glen. So lonely was she, 
in fact, that though she regarded Eustace Leigh with somewhat of 
aversion, and (being a good Protestant) with a great deal of suspicion, 
she could not find it in her heart to avoid a chat with him whenever he 
came down to the farm and to its mill, which he contrived to do, on I 
know not what would-be errand, almost every day. Her uncle and 
aunt at first looked stiff enough at these visits, and the latter took care 
always to make a third in every conversation; but still Mr. Leigh was 
a gentleman’s son, and it would not do to be rude to a neighboring 
squire and a good customer; and Rose was the rich man’s daughter, 
and they poor cousins, so it would not do either to quarrel with her; 
and besides, the pretty maid, half by wilfulness, and half by her sweet 
winning tricks, generally contrived to get her own way wheresoever she 
went; and she herself had been wise enough to beg her aunt never to 
leave them alone, — for she “ could not a-bear the sight of Mr. Eustace, 
only she must have some one to talk with down here.” On which her 
aunt considered, that she herself was but a simple country-woman; and 
that townsfolks’ ways of course must be very different from hers; and 
that people knew their own business best ; and so forth, and let things 
go on their own way. Eustace, in the meanwhile, who knew well that 
the difference in creed between him and Rose was likely to be the very 
hardest obstacle in the way of his love, took care to keep his private 


76 


Westward Ho ! 

opinions well in the background; and instead of trying to convert the 
folk at the mill, daily bought milk or flour from them, and gave it 
away to the old women in Moorwinstow (who agreed that after all, 
for a Papist, he was a godly young man enough) ; and at last, having 
taken counsel with Campian and Parsons on certain political plots 
then on foot, came with them to the conclusion that they would all 
three go to Church the next Sunday. Where Messrs. Evan Morgans 
and Morgan Evans, having crammed up the rubrics beforehand, be- 
haved themselves in a most orthodox and unexceptionable manner; as 
did also poor Eustace, to the great wonder of all good folks, and then 
went home flattering himself that he had taken in parson, clerk, and 
people; not knowing in his simple unsimplicity, and cunning foolish- 
ness, that each good wife in the parish was saying to the other, “ He 
turned Protestant? The devil turned monk! He’s only after Mis- 
tress Salterne, the young hypocrite.” 

But if the two Jesuits found it expedient, for the holy cause in 
which they were embarked, to reconcile themselves outwardly to the 
powers that were, they were none the less busy in private in plotting 
their overthrow. 

Ever since April last they had been playing at hide-and-seek 
through the length and breadth of England, and now they were only 
lying quiet till expected news from Ireland should give them their 
cue, and a great “ rising of the west ” should sweep from her throne, 
that stiff-necked, persecuting, excommunicate, reprobate, illegitimate, 
and profligate usurper, who falsely called herself the Queen of 
England. 

For they had as stoutly persuaded themselves in those days, as they 
have in these (with a real Baconian contempt of the results of sensible 
experience) , that the heart of England was really with them, and that 
the British nation was on the point of returning to the bosom of the 
Catholic Church, and giving up Elizabeth to be led in chains to the 
feet of the rightful Lord of Creation, the Old Man of the Seven Hills. 
And this fair hope which has been skipping just in front of them for 
centuries, always a step farther off, like the place where the rainbow 
touches the ground, they used to announce at times, in language which 
terrified old Mr. Leigh. One day, indeed, as Eustace entered his 
father’s private room, after his usual visit to the mill, he could hear 
voices high in dispute; Parsons as usual, blustering; Mr. Leigh 
peevishly deprecating, and Campian, who was really the sweetest- 
natured of men, trying to pour oil on the troubled waters. Whereat 


Tit© two ways 77 

Eustace (for the good of the cause, of course) stopped outside and 
listened. 

“ My excellent sir,” said Mr. Leigh, “ does not your very presence 
here show how I am affected toward the holy cause of the Catholic 
faith? But I cannot in the meanwhile forget that I am an English- 
man.” 

“And what is England? ” said Parsons: “A heretic and schismatic 
Babylon, whereof it is written, ‘ Come out of her, my people, lest you 
be partaker of her plagues/ Yea, what is a country? An arbitrary 
division of territory by the princes of this world, who are nought, and 
come to nought. They are created by the people’s will ; their existence 
depends on the sanction of him to whom all power is given in heaven 
and earth — our holy father the Pope. Take away the latter, and 
what is a king? — the people who have made him may unmake him.” 

“ My dear sir, recollect that I have sworn allegiance to Queen 
Elizabeth!” 

“ Yes, sir, you have, sir; and, as I have shown at large in my writ- 
ings, you were absolved from that allegiance from the moment that the 
bull of Pius the Fifth declared her a heretic and excommunicate, and 
thereby to have forfeited all dominion whatsoever. I tell you, sir, 
what I thought you should have known already, that since the year 
1569, England has had no Queen, no magistrates, no laws, no lawful 
authority whatsoever; and that to own allegiance to any English 
magistrate, sir, or to plead in an English court of -law, is to disobey 
the apostolic precept, ‘ How dare you go to law before the unbe- 
lievers?’ I tell you, sir, rebellion is now not merely permitted, it 
is a duty.” 

“Take care, sir; for God’s sake, take care!” said Mr. Leigh. 
“ Right or wrong, I cannot have such language used in my house. 
For the sake of my wife and children, I cannot! ” 

“ My dear brother Parsons, deal more gently with the flock,” in- 
terposed Campian. “ Your opinion, though probable, as I well know, 
in the eyes of most of our order, is hardly safe enough here; the op- 
posite is at least so safe that Mr. Leigh may well excuse his conscience 
for accepting it. After all, are we not sent hither to proclaim this 
very thing, and to relieve the souls of good Catholics from a burden 
which has seemed to them too heavy? ” 

“ Yes,” said Parsons, half sulkily, “ to allow all Balaams who will 
to sacrifice to Baal, while they call themselves by the name of the 
Lord.” 


78 


Westward Ho ! 

“ My dear brother, have I not often reminded you that Naaman was 
allowed to bow himself in the house of Rimmon? And can we there- 
fore complain of the office to which the Holy Father has appointed us, 
to declare to such as Mr. Leigh his especial grace, by which the bull 
of Pius the Fifth (on whose soul God have mercy!) shall henceforth 
bind the Queen and the heretics only ; but in no ways the Catholics, at 
least as long as the present tyranny prevents the pious purposes of the 
bull? ” 

“ Be it so, sir; be it so. Only observe this, Mr. Leigh, that our 
brother Campian confesses this to be a tyranny. Observe, sir, that the 
bull does still bind the so-called Queen, and that she and her magis- 
trates are still none the less usurpers, nonentities, and shadows of a 
shade. And observe this, sir, that when that which is lawful is ex- 
cused to the weak, it remains no less lawful to the strong. The seven 
thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal did not slay his priests ; 
but Elijah did, and won to himself a good reward. And if the rest 
of the children of Israel sinned not in not slaying Eglon, yet Ehud’s 
deed was none the less justified by all laws human and divine.” 

“ For heaven’s sake, do not talk so, sir! or I must leave the room. 
What have I to do with Ehud and Eglon, and slaughters, and tyran- 
nies? Our Queen is a very good Queen, if Heaven would but grant 
her repentance, and turn her to the true faith. I have never been 
troubled about religion, nor any one else that I know of in the west 
country.” 

“ You forget Mr. Trudgeon of Launceston, father, and poor Father 
Mayne,” interposed Eustace, who had by this time slipped in; and 
Campian added softly — 

“ Yes, your West of England also has been honored by its martyrs, 
as well as my London by the precious blood of Story.” 

“ What, young malapert? ” cried poor Leigh, facing round upon his 
son, glad to find any one on whom he might vent his ill-humor; £c are 
you, too, against me, with a murrain on you? And pray, what the 
devil brought Cuthbert Mayne to the gallows, and turned Mr. 
Trudgeon (he was always a foolish hot-head) out of house and home, 
but just such treasonable talk as Mr. Parsons must needs hold in my 
house, to make a beggar of me and my children, as he will before he 
has done.” 

“ The blessed Virgin forbid! ” said Campian. 

“ The blessed Virgin forbid? But you must help her to forbid it, 
Mr. Campian. We should never have had the law of 1571, against 


Tl*e two ways 79 

bulls, and Agnus Deis, and blessed grains, if the Pope’s bull of 1569 
had not made them matter of treason, by preventing a poor creature’s 
saving his soul in the true Church without putting his neck into a 
halter by denying the Queen’s authority.” 

“ What, sir? ” almost roared Parsons, “ do you dare to speak evil 
of the edicts of the Vicar of Christ? ” 

“ I? No. I didn’t. Who says I did? All I meant was, I am 
sure — Mr. Campian, you are a reasonable man, speak for me.” 

“ Mr. Leigh only meant, I am sure, that the Holy Father’s prudent 
intentions have been so far defeated by the perverseness and invincible 
misunderstanding of the heretics, that that which was in itself meant 
for the good of the oppressed English Catholics has been perverted 
to their harm.” 

“And thus, reverend sir,” said Eustace, glad to get into his father’s 
good graces again, “ my father attaches blame, not to the Pope — 
Heaven forbid! — but to the pravity of his enemies.” 

“And it is for this very reason,” said Campian, “ that we have 
brought with us the present merciful explanation of the bulb” 

“ I’ll tell you what, gentlemen,” said Mr. Leigh, who, like other 
weak men, grew in valor as his opponent seemed inclined to make 
peace, “ I don’t think the declaration was needed. After the new 
law of 1571 was made, it was never put in force till Mayne and 
Trudgeon made fools of themselves, and that was full six years. 
There were a few offenders, they say, who were brought up and ad- 
monished, and let go; but even that did not happen down here, and 
need not happen now, unless you put my son here (for you shall never 
put me, I warrant you) upon some deed which had better be left 
alone, and so bring us all to shame.” 

“ Your son, sir, if not openly vowed to God, has, I hope, a due 
sense of that inward vocation which we have seen in him, and rever- 
ences his spiritual fathers too well to listen to the temptations of his 
earthly father.” 

“ What, sir, will you teach my son to disobey me? ” 

“ Your son is ours also, sir. This is strange language in one who 
owes a debt to the Church, which it was charitably fancied he meant to 
pay in the person of his child.” 

These last words touched poor Mr. Leigh in a sore point, and break- 
ing all bounds, he swore roundly at Parsons, who stood foaming with 
rage. 

“A plague upon you, sir, and a black assizes for you, for you will 


80 


Westward Ho » 

come to the gallows yet! Do you mean to taunt me in my own house 
with that Hartland land? You had better go back and ask those 
who sent you, where the dispensation to hold the land is, which they 
promised to get me years ago, and have gone on putting me off, till 
they have got my money, and my son, and my conscience, and I vow 
before all the saints, seem now to want my head over and above. God 
help me ! ” — and the poor man’s eyes fairly filled with tears. 

Now was Eustace’s turn to be roused; for, after all, he was an 
Englishman and a gentleman ; and he said kindly enough, but firmly — 

“ Courage, my dearest father. Remember that I am still your son, 
and not a Jesuit yet; and whether I ever become one, I promise you, 
will depend mainly on the treatment which you meet with at the 
hands of these reverent gentlemen, for whom I, as having brought 
them hither, must consider myself as surety to you.” 

If a powder-barrel had exploded in the Jesuits’ faces, they could 
not have been more amazed. Campian looked blank at Parsons, and 
Parsons at Campian; till the stouter-hearted of the two, recovering 
his breath at last — 

“ Sir! do you know, sir, the curse pronounced on those who, after 
putting their hand to the plough, look back? ” 

Eustace was one of those impulsive men, with a lack of moral cour- 
age, who dare raise the devil, but never dare fight him after he has 
been raised; and he now tried to pass off his speech by winking and 
making signs in the direction of his father, as much as to say that he 
was only trying to quiet the old man’s fears. But Campian was too 
frightened, Parsons too angry, to take his hints: and he had to carry 
his part through. 

“All I read is, Father Parsons, that such are not fit for the king- 
dom of God; of which high honor I have for some time past felt my- 
self unworthy. I have much doubt just now as to my vocation; and 
in the meanwhile have not forgotten that I am a citizen of a free 
country.” And so saying, he took his father’s arm, and walked out. 

His last words had hit the Jesuits hard. They had put the poor 
cobweb-spinners in mind of the humiliating fact, which they have 
had thrust on them daily from that time till now, and yet have never 
learned the lesson, that all their scholastic cunning, plotting, intrigu- 
ing, bulls, pardons, indulgences, and the rest of it, are, on this side the 
Channel, a mere enchanter’s cloud-castle and Fata Morgana, which 
vanishes into empty air by one touch of that magic wand, the con- 
stable’s staff. “A citizen of a free country ! ” — there was the rub ; and 


Tfte two w ays 81 

they looked at each other in more utter perplexity than ever. At last 
Parsons spoke. 

“ There’s a woman in the wind. I’ll lay my life on it. I saw him 
blush up crimson yesterday, when his mother asked him whether some 
Rose Salterne or other was still in the neighborhood.” 

“A woman? Well, the spirit may be willing, though the flesh be 
weak. We will inquire into this. The youth may do us good service 
as a layman; and if anything should happen to his elder brother 
(whom the saints protect!) he is heir to some wealth. In the mean- 
while, our dear brother Parsons will perhaps see the expediency of 
altering our tactics somewhat while we are here.” 

And thereupon a long conversation began between the two, who 
had been sent together, after the wise method of their order, in obedi- 
ence to the precept, “ Two are better than one,” in order that Campian 
might restrain Parsons’s vehemence, and Parsons spur on Campian’s 
gentleness, and so each act as the supplement of the other, and each 
also, it must be confessed, gave advice pretty nearly contradictory to 
his fellow’s if occasion should require, “ without the danger,” as their 
writers have it, “ of seeming changeable and inconsistent.” 

The upshot of this conversation was, that in a day or two (during 
which time Mr. Leigh and Eustace also had made the amende honor- 
able, and matters went smoothly enough) Father Campian asked 
Father Francis the household chaplain to allow him, as an especial 
favor, to hear Eustace’s usual confession on the ensuing Friday. 

Poor Father Francis dared not refuse so great a man ; and assented 
with an inward groan, knowing well that the intent was to worm out 
some family secrets, whereby his power would be diminished, and the 
Jesuits’ increased. For the regular priesthood and the Jesuits 
throughout England were toward each other in a state of armed neu- 
trality, which wanted but little at any moment to become open war, as 
it did in James the First’s time, when those meek missionaries, by their 
gentle moral tortures, literally hunted to death the poor Popish bishop 
of Hippopotamus (that is to say, London) for the time being. 

However, Campian heard Eustace’s confession; and by putting to 
him such questions as may be easily conceived by those who know 
anything about the confessional, discovered satisfactorily enough, that 
he was what Campian would have called “ in love though I should 
question much the propriety of the term as applied to any facts which 
poor prurient Campian discovered, or indeed knew how to discover, 
seeing that a swine has no eye for pearls. But he had found out 


82 Westward Ho ! 

enough: he smiled, and set to work next vigorously to discover who the 
lady might be. 

If he had frankly said to Eustace, “ I feel for you; and if your 
desires are reasonable, or lawful, or possible, I will help you with all 
my heart and soul,” he might have had the young man’s secret heart, 
and saved himself an hour’s trouble; but, of course, he took instinc- 
tively the crooked and suspicious method, expected to find the case the 
worst possible, — as a man was bound to do who had been trained to 
take the lowest possible view of human nature, and to consider the 
basest motives as the mainspring of all human action, — and began his 
moral torture accordingly by a series of delicate questions, which poor 
Eustace dodged in every possible way, though he knew that the good 
father was too cunning for him, and that he must give in at last. 
Nevertheless, like a rabbit who runs squealing round and round before 
the weasel, into whose jaws it knows that it must jump at last by force 
of fascination, he parried and parried, and pretended to be stupid, and 
surprised, and honorably scrupulous, and even angry; while every 
question as to her being married or single, Catholic or heretic, English 
or foreign, brought his tormentor a step nearer the goal. At last, 
when Campian, finding the business not such a very bad one, had asked 
something about her worldly wealth, Eustace saw a door of escape and 
sprang at it. 

“ Even if she be a heretic, she is heiress to one of the wealthiest 
merchants in Devon.” 

“Ah! ” said Campian, thoughtfully. “And she is but eighteen, you 
say?” 

“ Only eighteen.” 

“Ah! well, my son, there is time. She may be reconciled to the 
Church : or you may change.” 

“ I shall die first.” 

“ Ah, poor lad! Well; she may be reconciled, and her wealth may 
be of use to the cause of heaven.” 

“And it shall be of use. Only absolve me, and let me be at peace. 
Let me have but her,” he cried piteously. “ I do not want her wealth, 
— not I! Let me have but her, and that but for one year, one month, 
one day! — and all the rest, — money, fame, talents, yea, my life itself, 
hers if it be needed, — are at the service of Holy Church. Ay, I shall 
glory in showing my devotion by some special sacrifice, — some des- 
perate deed. Prove me now, and see what there is I will not do ! ” 

And so Eustace was absolved; after which Campian added, — 


Tti© two ways 88 

This is indeed well, my son; for there is a thing to be done now, 
but it may be at the risk of life.” 

“ Prove me! ” cried Eustace impatiently. 

“ Here is a letter which was brought me last night; no matter from 
whence; you can understand it better than I, and I longed to have 
shown it you, but that I feared my son had become ” 

“ You feared wrongly, then, my dear Father Campian.” 

So Campian translated to him the cipher of the letter. 

“ This to Evan Morgans, gentleman, at Mr. Leigh’s house in Moor- 
winstow, Devonshire. News may be had by one who will go to the 
shore of Clovelly, any evening after the 25th of November, at dead 
low-tide, and there watch for a boat, rowed by one with a red beard, 
and a Portugal by his speech. If he be asked, ‘ How many? ’ he will 
answer, 4 Eight hundred and one.’ Take his letters and read them. 
If the shore be watched, let him who comes show a light three times in 
a safe place under the cliff above the town; below is dangerous land- 
ing. Farewell, and expect great things! ” 

“ I will go,” said Eustace; “ to-morrow is the 25th, and I know a 
sure and easy place. Your friend seems to know these shores 
well.” ^ 

“Ah! what is it we do not know? ” said Campian, with a mysterious 
smile. “And now? ” 

“And now, to prove to you how I trust to you, you shall come with 
me, and see this — the lady of whom I spoke, and judge for yourself 
whether my fault is not a venial one.” 

“Ah, my son, have I not absolved you already? What have I to 
do with fair faces? Nevertheless, I will come, both to show you that 
I trust you, and it may be to help toward reclaiming a heretic, and 
saving a lost soul: who knows? ” 

So the two set out together; and, as it was appointed, they had just 
got to the top of the hill between Chapel and Stow mill, when up the 
lane came none other than Mistress Rose Salterne herself, in all the 
glories of a new scarlet hood, from under which her large dark languid 
eyes gleamed soft lightnings through poor Eustace’s heart and mar- 
row. Up to them she tripped on delicate ankles and tiny feet, tall, 
lithe, and graceful, a true West-country lass; and as she passed them 
with a pretty blush and courtesy, even Campian looked back at the 
fair innocent creature, whose long dark curls, after the then country 
fashion, rolled down from beneath the hood below her waist, entan- 
gling the soul of Eustace Leigh within their glossy nets. 


84 Westward Ho ! 

“ There! ” whispered he, trembling from head to foot. “ Can you 
excuse me now? ” 

“ I had excused you long ago,” said the kind-hearted father. 
“Alas, that so much fair red and white should have been created only 
as a feast for worms! ” 

“A feast for gods you mean!” cried Eustace, on whose common 
sense the naive absurdity of the last speech struck keenly; and then, as 
if to escape the scolding which he deserved for his heathenry, — 

“Will you let me return for a moment? I will follow you: let 
me go ! ” 

Campian saw that it was of no use to say no, and nodded. Eustace 
darted from his side, and running across a field, met Rose full at the 
next turn of the road. 

She started, and gave a pretty little shriek. 

“ Mr. Leigh! I thought you had gone forward.” 

“ I came back to speak to vou, Rose — Mistress Salterne, I mean.” 

“ To me? ” 

“ To you I must speak, tell you all, or die! ” And he pressed up 
close to her. She shrank back somewhat frightened. 

“Do not stir; do not go, I implore you! Rose, only hear me!” 
And fiercely and passionately seizing her by the hand, he poured out 
the whole story of his love, heaping her with every fantastic epithet of 
admiration which he could devise. 

There was little, perhaps, of all his words which Rose had not heard 
many a time before; but there was a quiver in his voice, and a fire in 
his eye, from which she shrank by instinct. 

“ Let me go! ” she said; “ you are too rough, sir! ” 

“Ay!” he said, seizing now both her hands, “rougher, perhaps, 
than the gay gallants of Bideford, who serenade you, and write son- 
nets to you, and send you posies. Rougher, but more loving, Rose! 
Do not turn away! I shall die if you take your eyes off me! Tell 
me, — tell me, now here — this moment — before we part — if I may 
love you ! ” 

“Go away!” she answered, struggling, and bursting into tears. 
“ This is too rude. If I am but a merchant’s daughter, I am God’s 
child. Remember that I am alone. Leave me; go! or I will call for 
help!” 

Eustace had heard or read somewhere, that such expressions in a 
woman’s mouth were mere famous de parler , and on the whole signs 
that she had no objection to be alone, and did not intend to call for 


85 


TIi© two ways 

help; and he only grasped her hands the more fiercely, and looked 
into her face with keen and hungry eyes; but she was in earnest 
nevertheless, and a loud shriek made him aware that, if he wished to 
save his own good name, he must go : but there was one question, for 
an answer to which he would risk his very life. 

“ Yes, proud woman! I thought so! " Some one of those gay gal- 
lants has been beforehand with me. Tell me who ” 

But she broke from him, and passed him, and fled down the lane. 

“ Mark it! ” cried he, after her. “ You shall rue the day vdien you 
despised Eustace Leigh! Mark it, proud beauty! ” And he turned 
back to join Campian, who stood in some trepidation. 

“You have not hurt the maiden, my son? I thought I heard a 
scream.” 

“Hurt her! No. Would God that she were dead, nevertheless, 
and I by her! Say no more to me, father. We will home.” Even 
Campian knew enough of the world to guess what had happened, and 
they both hurried home in silence. 

And so Eustace Leigh played his move, and lost it. 

Poor little Rose, having run nearly to Chapel, stopped for very 
shame, and 'walked quietly by the cottages which stood opposite the 
gate, and then turned up the lane toward Moorwinstow village, 
whither she was bound. But on second thoughts, she felt herself so 
“ red and flustered,” that she was afraid of going into the village, for 
fear (as she said to herself) of making people talk, and so, turning 
into a by-path, struck away toward the cliffs, to cool her blushes in the 
sea-breeze. And there finding a quiet grassy nook beneath the crest 
of the rocks, she sat down on the turf, and fell into a great meditation. 

Rose Salterne was a thorough specimen of a West-coast maiden, 
full of passionate impulsive affections, and wild dreamy imaginations, 
a fit subject, as the North-Devon women are still, for all romantic and 
gentle superstitions. Left early without a mother’s care, she had fed 
her fancy upon the legends and ballads of her native land, till she 
believed — what did she not believe? — of mermaids and pixies, charms 
and witches, dreams and omens, and all that world of magic in which 
most of the countrywomen, and countrymen too, believed firmly 
enough but twenty years ago. Then her father’s house was seldom 
without some merchant, or sea-captain from foreign parts, who, like 
Othello, had his tales of — 

“Ant res vast, and deserts idle, 

Of rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads reach heaven. * 9 


86 


Weshvara Ho ! 


Andr«- 

* And of the cannibals that each other eat, 

The anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
Do grow beneath their shoulders.” 

All which tales, she, like Desdemona, devoured with greedy ears, 
whenever she could “ the house affairs with haste despatch.” And 
when these failed, there was still boundless store of wonders open to 
her in old romances which were then to be found in every English 
house of the better class. The Legend of King Arthur, Florice and 
Blancheflour, Sir Ysumbras, Sir Guy of Warwick, Palamon and 
Arcite, and the Romaunt of the Rose, were with her text-books and 
canonical authorities. And lucky it was, perhaps, for her, that Sid- 
ney’s Arcadia was still in petto, or Mr. Frank (who had already seen 
the first book or two in manuscript, and extolled it above all books 
past, present, or to come) would have surely brought a copy down for 
Rose, and thereby have turned her poor little flighty brains upside 
down forever. And with her head full of these, it was no wonder if 
she had likened herself of late more than once to some of those peerless 
princesses of old, for whose fair hand paladins and kaisers thundered 
against each other in tilted field; and perhaps she would not have been 
sorry (provided, of course, no one was killed) if duels and passages 
of arms in honor of her, as her father reasonably dreaded, had actually 
taken place. 

For Rose was not only well aware that she was wooed, but found the 
said wooing (and little shame to her) a very pleasant process. Not 
that she had any wish to break hearts : she did not break her heart for 
any of her admirers, and why should they break theirs for her? They 
were all very charming, each in his way (the gentlemen, at least; for 
she had long since learned to turn up her nose at merchants and 
burghers) ; but one of them was not so very much better than the other. 

Of course, Mr. Frank Leigh was the most charming; but then, as 
a courtier and squire of dames, he had never given her a sign of real 
love, nothing but sonnets and compliments, and there was no trusting 
such things from a gallant, who was said (though, by the by, most 
scandalously) to have a lady love at Milan, and another at Vienna, 
and half a dozen in the Court, and half a dozen more in the city. 

And very charming was Mr. William Cary, with his quips and his 
jests, and his galliards and lavoltas; over and above his rich inherit- 
ance ; but then, charming also Mr. Coffin of Portledge, though he were 


Tfte two ways 87 

a little proud and stately; but which of the two should she choose? It 
would be very pleasant to be mistress of Clovelly Court; but just as 
pleasant to find herself lady of Portledge, where the Coffins had lived 
ever since Noah’s flood (if, indeed, they had not merely returned 
thither after that temporary displacement), and to bring her wealth 
into a family which was as proud of its antiquity as any nobleman in 
Devon, and might have made a fourth to that famous trio of Devon- 
shire Cs, of which it is written, — 

“Crocker, Cruwys, and Copplestone, 

When the Conqueror came were all at home.” 

And Mr. Hugh Fortescue, too — people said that he was certain to 
become a great soldier — perhaps as great as his brother Arthur — and 
that would be pleasant enough, too, though he was but the younger 
son of an innumerable family: but then, so was Amyas Leigh. Ah, 
poor Amyas! Her girl’s fancy for him had vanished, or rather, per- 
haps, it was very much what it always had been, only that four or five 
more girl’s fancies beside it had entered in, and kept it in due subjec- 
tion. But still, she could not help thinking a good deal about him, 
and his voyage, and the reports of his great strength, and beauty, and 
valor, which had already reached her in that out-of-the-way corner; 
and though she was not in the least in love with him, she could not 
help hoping that he had at least (to put her pretty little thought in the 
mildest shape) not altogether forgotten her; and was hungering, too, 
with all her fancy, to give him no peace till he had told her all the 
wonderful things which he had seen and done in this ever-memorable 
voyage. So that altogether, it was no wonder, if in her last night’s 
dream the figure of Amyas had been even more forward and trouble- 
some than that of Frank or the rest. 

But, moreover, another figure had been forward and troublesome 
enough in last night’s sleep-world; and forward and troublesome 
enough, too, now in to-day’s waking-world, namely, Eustace, the 
rejected. How strange that she should have dreamed of him the 
night before! and dreamed, too, of his fighting with Mr. Frank and 
Mr. Amyas ! It must be a warning — see, she had met him the very 
next day in this strange way; so the first half of her dream had come 
true; and after what had passed, she only had to breathe a whisper, and 
the second part of the dream would come true also. If she wished for 
a passage of arms in her own honor, she could easily enough compass 


88 


Westward Ho t 

one : not that she would do it for worlds ! And after all, though Mr. 
Eustace had been very rude and naughty, yet still it was not his own 
fault; he could not help being in love with her. And — and, in short, 
the poor little maid felt herself one of the most important personages 
on earth, with all the cares (or hearts) of the country in her keeping, 
and as much perplexed with matters of weight as ever was any 
Cleophila, or Dianeme, Fiordispina or Flourdeluce, in verse run tame, 
or prose run mad. 

Poor little Rose! Had she but had a mother! But she was to 
learn her lesson, such as it was, in another school. She was too shy 
(too proud, perhaps) to tell her aunt her mighty troubles; but a coun- 
sellor she must have ; and after sitting with her head in her hands, for 
half an hour or more, she arose suddenly, and started off along the 
cliffs toward Marsland. She would go and see Lucy Passmore, the 
white witch; Lucy knew everything; Lucy would tell her what to do; 
perhaps even whom to marry. 

Lucy was a fat, jolly woman of fifty, with little pig-eyes, which 
twinkled like sparks of fire, and eyebrows which sloped upward and 
outward, like those of a satyr, as if she had been (as indeed she had) 
all her life looking out of the corners of her eyes. Her qualifications 
as white witch were boundless cunning, equally boundless good nature, 
considerable knowledge of human weaknesses, some mesmeric power, 
some skill in “ yarbs,” as she called her simples, a firm faith in the 
virtue of her own incantations, and the faculty of holding her tongue. 
By dint of these she contrived to gain a fair share of money, and also 
(which she liked even better) of power, among the simple folk for 
many miles round. If a child was scalded, a tooth ached, a piece of 
silver was stolen, a heifer shrew-struck, a pig bewitched, a young dam- 
sel crossed in love, Lucy was called in, and Lucy found a remedy, 
especially for the latter complaint. Now and then she found herself 
on ticklish ground, for the kind-heartedness which compelled her to 
help all distressed damsels out of a scrape, sometimes compelled her 
also to help them into one; whereon, enraged fathers called Lucy ugly 
names, and threatened to send her into Exeter jail for a witch, and 
she smiled quietly, and hinted that if she were “ like some that were 
ready to return evil for evil, such talk as that would bring no blessing 
on them that spoke it;” which being translated into plain English 
meant, “ If you trouble me, I will overlook (i. e., fascinate) you, and 
then your pigs will die, your horses stray, your cream turn sour, your 
barns be fired, your son have St. Vitus’s dance, your daughter fits. 


89 


Tl$© two w ays 

and so on, woe on woe, till you are very probably starved to death in 
a ditch, by virtue of this terrible little eye of mine, at which, in spite 
of all your swearing and bullying, you know you are now shaking in 
your shoes for fear. So you had much better hold your tongue, give 
me a drink of cider, and leave ill alone, lest you make it worse.” 

Not that Lucy ever proceeded to any such fearful extremities. On 
the contrary, her boast, and her belief too, was, that she was sent into 
the world to make poor souls as happy as she could, by lawful means, 
of course, if possible, but if not — why unlawful ones were better than 
none; for she “ couldn’t abear to see the poor creatures taking on; she 
was too, too tender-hearted.” And so she was, to every one but her 
husband, a tall, simple-hearted, rabbit-faced man, a good deal older 
than herself. Fully agreeing with Sir Richard Grenvile’s great 
axiom, that he who cannot obey cannot rule, Lucy had been for the 
last five-and-twenty years training him pretty smartly to obey her, 
with the intention, it is to be charitably hoped, of letting him rule her 
in turn when his lesson was perfected. He bore his honors, however, 
meekly enough, having a boundless respect for his wife’s wisdom, and 
a firm belief in her supernatural powers, and let her go her own way 
and earn her own money, while he got a little more in a truly pastoral 
method (not extinct yet along those lonely cliffs), by feeding a herd 
of some dozen donkeys and twenty goats. The donkeys fetched, at 
each low-tide, white shell-sand which was to be sold for manure to the 
neighboring farmers; the goats furnished milk and “ kiddy-pies ”; and 
when there was neither milking nor sand-carrying to be done, old Will 
Passmore just sat under a sunny rock and watched the buck-goats 
rattle their horns together, thinking about nothing at all, and taking 
very good care all the while neither to inquire nor to see who came in 
and out of his little cottage in the glen. 

The Prophetess, when Ruse approached her oracular cave, was 
seated on a tripod in front of the fire, distilling strong waters out of 
pennyroyal. But no sooner did her distinguished visitor appear at 
the hatch, than the still was left to take care of itself, and a clean 
apron and mutch having been slipped on, Lucy welcomed Rose with 
endless courtesies, and— “ Bless my dear soul alive, who ever would 
have thought to see the Rose of Torridge to my poor little place! ” 

Rose sat down: and then? How to begin was more than she knew, 
and she stayed silent a full five minutes, looking earnestly at the point 
of her shoe, till Lucy, who was an adept in such cases, thought it best 
to proceed to business at once, and save Rose the delicate operation of 


90 Westward Ho I 

opening the ball herself ; and so, in her own way, half fawning, half 
familiar — 

“ Well, my dear young lady, and what is it I can do for ye? For 
I guess you want a bit of old Lucy’s help, eh? Though I’m most 
mazed to see ye here, surely. I should have supposed that pretty face 
could manage they sort of matters for itself. Eh? ” 

Rose, thus bluntly charged, confessed at once, and with many 
blushes and hesitations, made her soon understand that what she 
wanted was “ To have her fortune told.” 

“ Eh? Oh! I see. The pretty face has managed it a bit too well 
already, eh? Tu many o’mun, pure fellows? Well, ’tain’t every 
mayden has her pick and choose, like some I know of, as be blest in 
love by stars above. So you hain’t made up your mind, then? ” 

Rose shook her head. 

“Ah — well,” she went on, in a half bantering tone. “ Not so asy, 
is it, then? One’s gude for one thing, and one for another, eh? One 
has the blood, and another the money.” 

And so the “ cunning woman ” (as she truly was), talking half to 
herself, ran over all the names which she thought likely, peering at 
Rose all the while out of the corners of her foxy bright eyes, while 
Rose stirred the peat ashes steadfastly with the point of her little 
shoe, half angry, half ashamed, half frightened, to find that “ the 
cunning woman” had guessed so well both her suitors and her 
thoughts about them, and tried to look unconcerned at each name as 
it came out. 

“ Well, well,” said Lucy, who took nothing by her move, simply 
because there was nothing to take; “ think over it — think over it, my 
dear life; and if you did set your mind on any one — why, then — then 
maybe I might help you to a sight of him.” 

“ A sight of him? ” 

“ His sperrit, dear life, his sperrit only, I mane. I ’udn’t have no 
keeping company in my house, no, not for gowld untowld, I ’udn’t; 
but the sperrit of mun — to see whether mun would be true or not, 
you’d like to know that, now, ’udn’t you, my darling? ” 

Rose sighed, and stirred the ashes about vehemently. 

“ I must first know who it is to be. If you could show me that — 
now ” 

“ Oh, I can show ye that, tu, I can. Ren there’s a way to ’t, a sure 
way; but ’tis mortal cold for the time o’ year, you zee.” 

“ But what is it, then? ” said Rose, who had in her heart been long- 


91 


Tli© two ways 

in g for something of that very kind, and had half made up her mind 
to ask for a charm. 

“ Why, you’m not afraid to goo into the say by night for a minute, 
are you? And to-morrow night would serve, too; ’twill be just low 
tide to midnight.” 

“ If you would come with me, perhaps ” 

“ I’ll come, I’ll come, and stand within call, to be sure. Only do 
ye mind this, dear soul alive, not to goo telling a crumb about mun, 
noo, not for the world, or yu’ll see nought at all, indeed, now. And 
beside, there’s a noxious business grow’d up against me up to Chapel 
there; and I hear tell how Mr. Leigh saith I shall to Exeter jail for 
a witch — did ye ever hear the likes? — because his groom Jan saith I 
overlooked mun — the Papist dog! And now never he nor th’ ould 
Father Francis goo by me without a spetting, and saying of their 
Aves and Malificas — I do not know what their Rooman Latin do 
mane, zo well as ever they, I du! — and a making o’ their charms and 
incantations to their saints and idols! They be mortal feared of 
witches, they Papists, and mortal hard on ’em, even on a pure body 
like me, that doth a bit in the white way; ’case why you see, dear life,” 
said she, with one of her humorous twinkles, “ tu to a trade do never 
agree. Do ye try my bit of a charm, now; do ye! ” 

Rose could not resist the temptation; and between them both the 
charm was agreed on, and the next night was fixed for its trial, on the 
payment of certain current coins of the realm (for Lucy, of course, 
must live by her trade) ; and slipping a tester into the dame’s hand as 
earnest, Rose went away home, and got there in safety. 

But in the meanwhile, at the very hour that Eustace had been 
prosecuting his suit in the lane at Moorwinstow, a very different scene 
was being enacted in Mrs. Leigh’s room at Burrough. 

For the night before, Amyas, as he was going to bed, heard his 
brother Frank in the next room tune his lute, and then begin to sing. 
And both their windows being open, and only a thin partition between 
the chambers, Amyas’s admiring ears came in for every word of the 
following canzonet, sung in that delicate and mellow tenor voice for 
which Frank was famed among all fair ladies: — 

“Ah tyrant love, Megasra’s serpents bearing, 

Why thus requite my sighs with venom ’d smart ? 

Ah, ruthless dove, the vulture’s talons wearing, 

Why flesh them, traitress, in this faithful heart ? 

Is this my meed? Must dragons’ teeth alone 
In Venus’ lawns by lovers’ hands be sown? 


92 


Westward Ho ! 

“Nay, gentlest Cupid; ’twas my pride undid me; 

Nay, guiltless dove ; by mine own wound I fell. 

To worship, not to wed, Celestials bid me : 

I dreamt to mate in heaven, and wake in hell ; 

For ever doom’d, Ixion-like, to reel 
On mine own passions’ ever-burning wheel.” 

At which the simple sailor sighed, and longed that he could write 
such neat verses, and sing them so sweetly. How he would besiege 
the ear of Rose Salterne with amorous ditties ! But still, he could not 
be everything; and if he had the bone and muscle of the family, it was 
but fair that Frank should have the brains and voice; and, after all, 
he was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and it was just the same 
as if he himself could do all the fine things which Frank could do; for 
as long as one of the family won honor, what matter which of them it 
was? Whereon he shouted through the wall, “ Good-night, old song- 
thrush; I suppose I need not pay the musicians.” 

“ What, awake? ” answered Frank. “ Come in here, and lull me to 
sleep with a sea-song.” 

So Amyas went in, and found Frank laid on the outside of his bed 
not yet undressed. 

“ I am a bad sleeper,” said he; “ I spend more time, I fear, in burn- 
ing the midnight oil than prudent men should. Come and be my 
jongleur, my minnesinger, and tell me about Andes, and cannibals, 
and the ice-regions, and the fire-regions, and the paradises of the 
West.” 

So Amyas sat down, and told: but somehow, every story which he 
tried to tell came round, by crooked paths, yet sure, to none other 
point than Rose Salterne, and how he thought of her here, and thought 
of her there, and how he wondered what she would say if she had seen 
him in this adventure, and how he longed to have had her with him 
to show her that glorious sight, till Frank let him have his own way, 
and then out came the whole story of the simple fellow’s daily and 
hourly devotion to her, through those three long years of world-wide 
wanderings. 

‘And oh, Frank, I could hardly think of anything but her in the 
church the other day, God forgive me! and it did seem so hard for her 
to be the only face which I did not see — and have not seen her yet, 
either.” 

“ So I thought, dear lad,” said Frank, with one of his sweetest 
smiles; “ and tried to get her father to let her impersonate the nymph 
of Torridge.” 


98 


Tli© two w &y& 

" Did you, you dear, kind fellow? That would have been too 
delicious.” 

“ Just so, too delicious; wherefore, I suppose, it was ordained not 
to be, that which was being delicious enough.” 

“ And is she as pretty as ever? ” 

“Ten times as pretty, dear lad, as half the young fellows round 
have discovered. If you mean to win her and wear her (and God 
grant you may fare no worse!) you will have rivals enough to get 
rid of.” 

“ Humph! ” said Amyas, “ I hope I shall not have to make short 
work with some of them.” 

“ I hope not,” said Frank, laughing. “ Now go to bed, and to- 
morrow morning give your sword to mother to keep, lest you should 
be tempted to draw it on any of her Majesty’s lieges.” 

“No fear of that, Frank; I am no swash-buckler, thank God; but 
if any one gets in my way, I’ll serve him as the mastiff did the terrier, 
and just drop him over the quay into the river, to cool himself, or my 
name’s not Amyas.” 

And the giant swung himself laughing out of the room, and slept 
all night like a seal, not without dreams, of course, of Rose Salterne. 

The next morning, according to his wont, he went into his mother’s 
room, whom he was sure to find up, and at her prayers; for he liked 
to say his prayers, too, by her side, as he used to do when he was a 
little boy. It seemed so homelike, he said, after three years’ knocking 
up and down in no-man’s land. But coming gently to the door, for 
fear of disturbing her, and entering unperceived, beheld a sight which 
stopped him short. 

Mrs. Leigh was sitting in her chair, with her face bowed fondly 
down upon the head of his brother Frank, who knelt before her, his 
face buried in her lap. Amyas could see that his whole form was 
quivering with stifled emotion. Their mother was just finishing the 
last words of a well-known text — 

— “ for my sake, and the Gospel’s, shall receive a hundredfold in this 
present life, fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and sisters.” 

“ But not a wife! ” interrupted Frank, with a voice stifled with sobs; 
“ that was too precious a gift for even Him to promise to those who 
gave up a first love for His sake! ” 

“And yet,” said he, after a moment’s silence, “ has He not heaped 
me with blessings enough already, that I must repine and rage at His 
refusing me one more, even though that one be — No, mother! I am 


94 


Westward Ho ! 

your son, and God’s ; and you shall know it, even though Amyas never 
does ! ” And he looked up with his clear blue eyes and white fore- 
head; and his face was as the face of an angel. 

Both of them saw that Amyas was present, and started and blushed. 
His mother motioned him away with her eyes, and he went quietly out, 
as one stunned. Why had his name been mentioned? 

Love, cunning love, told him all at once. This was the meaning of 
last night’s canzonet! This was why its words had seemed to fit his 
own heart so well ! His brother was his rival. And he had been tell- 
ing him all his love last night. What a stupid brute he was ! How it 
must have made poor Frank wince! And then Frank had listened 
so kindly; even bid him Godspeed in his suit. What a gentleman old 
Frank was, to be sure! No wonder the Queen was so fond of him, 
and all the court ladies! — Why, if it came to that, what wonder if 
Rose Salterne should be fond of him too? Hey-day! 44 That would 
be a pretty fish to find in my net when I come to haul it ! ” quoth 
Amyas to himself, as he paced the garden; and clutching desperately 
hold of his locks with both hands, as if to hold his poor confused head 
on its shoulders, he strode and tramped up and down the shell-paved 
garden walks for a full half hour, till Frank’s voice (as cheerful as 
ever, though he more than suspected all) called him. 

“ Come in to breakfast, lad; and stop grinding and creaking upon 
those miserable limpets, before thou hast set every tooth in my head 
on edge! ” 

Amyas, whether by dint of holding his head straight, or by higher 
means, had got the thoughts of the said head straight enough by this 
time ; and in he came, and fell to upon the broiled fish and strong ale, 
with a sort of fury, as determined to do his duty to the utmost in all 
matters that day; and therefore, of course, in that most important 
matter of bodily sustenance; while his mother and Frank looked at 
him, not without anxiety and even terror, doubting what turn his fancy 
might have taken in so new a case ; at last — 

4 4 My dear Amyas, you will really heat your blood with all that 
strong ale! Remember, those who drink beer, think beer.” 

44 Then they think right good thoughts, mother. And in the mean- 
while, those who drink water, think water. Eh, old Frank? and here’s 
your health.” 

“And clouds are water,” said his mother, somewhat reassured by his 
genuine good humor; 44 and so are rainbows; and clouds are angels’ 
thrones, and rainbows the sign of God’s peace on earth.” 


Tli© two ways 95 

Amyas understood the hint, and laughed. “Then I’ll pledge 
Frank out of the next ditch, if it please you and him. But first — I 
sa y — he must hearken to a parable ; a manner mystery, miracle play, I 
have got in my head, like what they have at Easter, to the town-hall. 
Now then, hearken, madam, and I and Frank will act.” And up rose 
Amyas, and shoved back his chair, and put on a solemn face. 

Mrs. Leigh looked up, trembling; and Frank, he scarce knew why, 
rose. 

“ No; you pitch again. You are King David, and sit still upon 
your throne. David was a great singer, you know, and a player on 
the viols; and ruddy, too, and of a fair countenance; so that will fit. 
Now, then, mother, don’t look so frightened. I am not going to play 
Goliath, for all my cubits; I am to present Nathan the prophet. 
Now, David, hearken, for I have a message unto thee, O King! 

“ There were two men in one city, one rich, and the other poor: and 
the rich man had many flocks and herds, and all the fine ladies in 
Whitehall to court if he liked; and the poor man had nothing 
but ” 

And in spite of his broad honest smile, Amyas’s deep voice began 
to tremble and choke. 

Frank sprang up, and burst into tears: — “ Oh! Amyas, my brother, 
my brother! stop ! I cannot endure this. Oh, God! was it not enough 
to have entangled myself in this fatal fancy, but over and above, I 
must meet the shame of my brother’s discovering it? ” 

“What shame, then, I’d like to know?” said Amyas, recovering 
himself. “ Look here, brother Frank! I’ve thought it all over in the 
garden; and I was an ass and a braggart for talking to you as I did 
last night. Of course you love her! Everybody must; and I was a 
fool for not recollecting that; and if you love her, your taste and mine 
agree, and what can be better? I think you are a sensible fellow for 
loving her, and you think me one. And as for who has her, why, 
you’re the eldest; and first come first served is the rule, and best to 
keep to it. Besides, brother Frank, though I’m no scholar, yet I’m 
not so blind but that I tell the difference between you and me; and of 
course your chance against mine, for a hundred to one; and I am not 
going to be fool enough to row against wind and tide too. I’m good 
enough for her, I hope; but if I am, you are better, and the good dog 
may run, but it’s the best that takes the hare; and so I have nothing 
more to do with the matter at all; and if you marry her, why, it will set 
the old house on its legs again, and that’s the first thing to be thought 


96 


Westwara Ho ! 

of, and you may just as well do it as I, and better too. Not but that it’s 
a plague, a horrible plague! ” went on Amyas, with a ludicrously dole- 
ful visage; “ but so are other things too, by the dozen; it’s all in the 
day’s work, as the huntsman said when the lion ate him. One would 
never get through the furze-croft if one stopped to pull out the 
prickles. The pig didn’t scramble out of the ditch by squeaking; and 
the less said the sooner mended ; nobody was sent into the world only 
to suck honey-pots. What must be must, man is but dust; if you 
can’t get crumb, you must fain eat crust. So I’ll go and join the 
army in Ireland, and get it out of my head, for cannon balls fright 
away love as well as poverty does; and that’s all I’ve got to say.” 
Wherewith Amyas sat down, and returned to the beer; while Mrs. 
Leigh wept tears of joy. 

“Amyas! Amyas!” said Frank; “you must not throw away the 
hopes of years, and for me, too! Oh, how just was your parable! 
Ah ! mother mine ! to what use is all my scholarship and my philosophy, 
when this dear simple sailor-lad outdoes me at the first trial of 
courtesy ! ” 

“ My children, my children, which of you shall I love best? Which 
of you is the more noble? I thanked God this morning for having 
given me one such son; but to have found that I possess two! ” And 
Mrs. Leigh laid her head on the table, and buried her face in her 
hands, while the generous battle went on. 

“ But, dearest Amyas ! ” 

“ But, Frank! if you don’t hold your tongue, I must go forth. It 
was quite trouble enough to make up one’s mind, without having you 
afterward trying to unmake it again.” 

“Amyas ! if you give her up to me, God do so to me, and more also, 
if I do not hereby give her up to you! ” 

“ He had done it already — this morning! ” said Mrs. Leigh, looking 
up through her tears. “ He renounced her forever on his knees before 
me ! only he is too noble to tell you so.” 

“ The more reason I should copy him,” said Amyas, setting his lips, 
and trying to look desperately determined, and then suddenly jump- 
ing up, he leaped upon Frank, and throwing his arms round his neck, 
fobbed out, “ There, there, now! For God’s sake, let us forget all, 
and think about our mother, and the old house, and how we may win 
her honor before we die! and that will be enough to keep our hands 
full, without fretting about this woman and that. — What an ass I have 
been for years! instead of learning my calling, dreaming about her, 


The two ways 97 

and don’t know at this minute, whether she cares more for me than she 
does for her father’s ’prentices ! ” 

“ Oh, Amyas! every word of yours puts me to fresh shame! Will 
you believe that I know as little of her likings as you do? ” 

“ Don’t tell me that, and play the devil’s game by putting fresh 
hopes into me, when I am trying to kick them out. I won’t believe it. 
If she is not a fool, she must love you; and if she don’t, why, be hanged 
if she is worth loving! ” 

“ My dearest Amyas! I must ask you too to make no more such 
speeches to me. All those thoughts I have forsworn.” 

“ Only this morning; so there is time to catch them again before 
they are gone too far.” 

“ Only this morning,” said Frank, with a quiet smile: “ but cen- 
turies have passed since then.” 

“ Centuries? I don’t see many gray hairs yet.” 

“ I should not have been surprised if you had, though,” answered 
F rank, in so sad and meaning a tone that Amyas could only answer, 

“ Well, you are an angel! ” 

“ You, at least, are something even more to the purpose, for you 
are a man! ” 

And both spoke truth, and so the battle ended; and Frank went to 
his books, while Amyas, who must needs be doing, if he was not to 
dream, started off to the dock-yard to potter about a new ship of Sir 
Richard’s, and forget his woes, in the capacity of Sir Oracle among 
the sailors. And so he had played his move for Rose, even as Eustace 
had, and lost her: but not as Eustace had. 



CHAPTER. V. 

ClovelW Court in Ihe Olden Time. 

“It was among the ways of good Queen Bess, 

Who ruled as well as ever mortal can, sir, 

When she was stogg’d, and the country in a mess, 

She was wont to send for a Devon man, sir.” 

West Country Song. 

The next morning Amyas Leigh was not to be found. Not that 
he had gone out to drown himself in despair, or even to bemoan him- 
self “ down by the Torridge side.” He had simply ridden off, Frank 
found, to Sir Richard Grenvile at Stow: his mother at once divined 
the truth, that he was gone to try for a post in the Irish army, and 
sent off Frank after him to bring him home again, and make him at 
least reconsider himself. 

So Frank took horse and rode thereon ten miles or more: and then, 
as there were no inns on the road in those days, or indeed in these, 
and he had some ten miles more of hilly road before him, he turned 
down the hill toward Clovelly Court, to obtain, after the hospitable 
humane fashion of those days, good entertainment for man and horse 
from Mr. Cary the squire. 

And when he walked self-invited, like the loud-shouting Menelaus, 
in the long dark wainscotted hall of the Court, the first object he 
beheld was the mighty form of Amyas, who, seated at the long table, 
was alternately burying his face in a pasty, and the pasty in his face, 
his sorrows having, as it seemed, only sharpened his appetite, while 
young Will Cary, kneeling on the opposite bench, with his elbows on 
the table, was in that graceful attitude laying down the law fiercely to 
him in a low voice. 

“Hillo! lad,” cried Amyas; “come hither and deliver me out of 
the hands of this fire-eater, who I verily believe will kill me, if I do 
not let him kill some one else.” 

“Ah ! Mr. Frank,” said Will Cary, who, like all other young gentle- 
men of these parts, held Frank in high honor, and considered him a 


Clovelly Court 99 

very oracle and cynosure of fashion and chivalry, “welcome here: I 
was just longing for you, too; I wanted your advice on half a dozen 
matters. Sit down, and eat. There is the ale.” 

“ None so early, thank you.” 

“ Ah, no! ” said Amyas, burying his head in the tankard, and then 
mimicking Frank, “ avoid strong ale o’ mornings. It heats the blood, 
thickens the animal spirits, and obfuscates the cerebrum with frenetical 
and lymphatic idols, which cloud the quint-essential light of the pure 
reason. Eh? young Plato, young Daniel, come hither to judgment! 
And yet, though I cannot see through the bottom of the tankard 
already, I can see plain enough still to see this, that Will shall not 
fight.” 

“ Shall I not, eh? who says that? Mr. Frank, I appeal to you, now; 
only hear.” 

“We are in the judgment-seat,” said Frank, settling to the pasty. 
“ Proceed, appellant.” 

“ Well, I was telling Amyas, that Tom Coffin, of Portledge; I will 
stand him no longer.” 

“Let him be, then,” said Amyas; “he could stand very well by 
himself, when I saw him last.” 

“ Plague on you, hold your tongue. Has he any right to look at 
me as he does, whenever I pass him? ” 

“ That depends on how he looks ; a cat may look at a king, provided 
she don’t take him for a mouse.” 

“ Oh, I know how he looks, and what he means too, and he shall 
stop, or I will stop him. And the other day, when I spoke of Rose 
Salteme.” — “Ah!” groaned Frank, “Ate’s apple again!” — “(never 
mind what I said) he burst out laughing in my face; and is not that a 
fair quarrel? And what is more, I know that he wrote a sonnet, and 
sent it her to Stow by a market woman. What right has he to write 
sonnets when I can’t? It’s not fair play, Mr. Frank, or I am a Jew, 
and a Spaniard, and a papist; it’s not!” And Will smote the table 
till the plates danced again. 

“ My dear knight of the burning pestle, I have a plan, a device, a 
disentanglement, according to most approved rules of chivalry. Let 
us fix a day, and summon by tuck of drum all young gentlemen under 
the age of thirty, dwelling within fifteen miles of the habitation of 
that peerless Oriana.” 

“And all ’prentice-boys too,” cried Amyas out of the pasty. 

“And all ’prentice-boys. The bold lads shall fight first, with good 


ioo Westward Ho ! 

quarter staves, in Bideford Market, till all heads are broken ; and the 
head which is not broken, let the back belonging to it pay the penalty 
of the noble member’s cowardice. After which grand tournament, 
to which that of Tottenham shall be but a flea-bite and a batrachomyo- 
machy ” 

“ Confound you, and your long words, sir,” said poor Will, “ I 
know you are flouting me.” 

“ Pazienza, Signor Cavaliere; that which is to come is no flouting, 
but bloody and warlike earnest. For afterward all the young gentle- 
men shall adjourn into a convenient field, sand, or bog — which last 
will be better, as no man will be able to run away, if he be up to his 
knees in soft peat: and there stripping to our shirts, with rapiers of 
equal length and keenest temper, each shall slay his man, catch who 
catch can, and the conquerors fight again, like a most valiant main of 
gamecocks as we are, till all be dead, and out of their woes; after which 
the survivor, bewailing before heaven and earth the cruelty of our Fair 
Oriana, and the slaughter which her basiliscine eyes have caused, shall 
fall gracefully upon his sword, and so end the woes of this our love-lorn 
generation. Placetne Domini? as they used to ask in the Senate at 
Oxford.” 

“ Really,” said Cary, “ this is too bad.” 

“ So is, pardon me, your fighting Mr. Coffin with anything longer 
than a bodkin.” 

“Bodkins are too short for such fierce Bobadils,” said Amyas; 
“ they would close in so near, that we should have them falling to 
fisticuffs after the first bout.” 

“ Then let them fight with squirts across the market-place; for by 
heaven and the Queen’s laws, they shall fight with nothing else.” 

“ My dear Mr. Cary,” went on Frank, suddenly changing his ban- 
tering tone to one of the most winning sweetness; “ do not fancy that 
I cannot feel for you; or that I, as well as you, have not known the 
stings of love, and the bitterer stings of jealousy. But oh, Mr. Cary, 
does it not seem to you an awful thing to waste selfishly upon your 
own quarrel that divine wrath which, as Plato says, is the very root 
of all virtues, and which has been given you, like all else which you 
have, that you may spend it in the service of her whom all bad souls 
fear, and all virtuous souls adore, — our peerless Queen? Who dares, 
while she rules England, call his sword or his courage his own, or any 
one’s but hers? Are there no Spaniards to conquer, no wild Irish to 
deliver from their oppressors, that two gentlemen of Devon can find 


101 


Clovelly Court 

no better place to flesh their blades than in each other’s valiant and 
honorable hearts?” 

“ By heaven! ” cried Ainyas, “ Frank speaks like a book; and for 
me, I do think that Christian gentlemen may leave love quarrels to 
bulls and rams.” 

“And that the heir of Clovelly,” said Frank, smiling, “ may find 
more noble examples to copy than the stags in his own deer- 
park.” 

“ Well,” said Will penitently, “ you are a great scholar, Mr. Frank, 
and you speak like one ; but gentlemen must fight sometimes, or where 
would be their honor? ” 

“ I speak,” said Frank a little proudly, “ not merely as a scholar, 
but as a gentleman, and one who has fought ere now, and to whom it 
has happened, Mr. Cary, to kill his man (on whose soul may God have 
mercy) ; but it is my pride to remember that I have never yet fought 
in my own quarrel, and my trust in God that I never shall. For as 
there is nothing more noble and blessed than to fight in behalf of those 
whom we love, so to fight in our own private behalf is a thing not to 
be allowed to a Christian man, unless refusal imports utter loss of life 
or honor; and even then, it may be (though I would not lay a burden 
on any man’s conscience) , it is better not to resist evil, but to overcome 
it with good.” 

“And I can tell you, Will,” said Amyas, “ I am not troubled 
with fear of ghosts; but when I cut off the Frenchman’s head, I said 
to myself, ‘ If that braggart had been slandering me instead of her 
gracious Majesty, I should expect to see that head lying on my pillow 
every time I went to bed at night.” 

“ God forbid! ” said Will with a shudder. “ But what shall I do? 
for to the market to-morrow I will go, if it were choke-full of Coffins, 
and a ghost in each coffin of the lot.” 

“ Leave the matter to me,” said Amyas. “ I have my device, as 
well as scholar Frank here; and if there be, as I suppose there must be, 
a quarrel in the market to-morrow, see if I do not ” 

“ Well, you are two good fellows,” said Will. “ Let us have an- 
other tankard in.” 

“And drink the health of Mr. Coffin, and all gallant lads of the 
north,” said Frank; “ and now to my business. I have to take this 
runaway youth here home to his mother; and if he will not go quietly, 
I have orders to carry him across my saddle.” 

“ I hope your nag has a strong back, then,” said Amyas; “ but I 


102 


Westward Ho ! 

must go on and see Sir Richard, Frank. It is all very well to jest as 
we have been doing, but my mind is made up.” 

“ Stop,” said Cary. “ You must stay here to-night; first, for good 
fellowship’s sake ; and next, because I want the advice of our Phoenix 
here, our oracle, our paragon. There, Mr. Frank, can you construe 
that for me? Speak low, though, gentlemen both; there comes my 
father; you had better give me the letter again. Well, father, whence 
this morning? ” 

“Eh, company here? Young men, you are always welcome, and 
such as you. Would there were more of your sort in these dirty 
times. How is your good mother, Frank, eh? Where have I been, 
Will? Round the house-farm, to look at the beeves. That sheeted 
heifer of Prowse’s is all wrong; her coat stares like a hedgepig’s. 
Tell Jewell to go up and bring her in before night. And then up the 
forty acres ; sprang two coveys, and picked a leash out of them. The 
Irish hawk flies as wild as any haggard still, and will never make a 
bird. I had to hand her to Tom, and take the little peregrine. Give 
me a Clovelly hawk against the world, after all; and — heigh-ho, I am 
very hungry! Half-past twelve, and dinner not served? What, 
Master Amyas, spoiling your appetite with strong ale? Better have 
tried sack, lad; have some now with me.” 

And the worthy old gentleman, having finished his oration, settled 
himself on a great bench inside the chimney, and put his hawk on a 
perch over his head, while his cockers coiled themselves up close to the 
warm peat-ashes, and his son set to work to pull off his father’s boots, 
amid sundry warnings to take care of his corns. 

“ Come, Master Amyas, a pint of white wine and sugar, and a bit 
of a shoeing-horn to it ere we dine. Some pickled prawns, now, or a 
rasher off the coals, to whet you? ” 

“ Thank you,” quoth Amyas; “ but I have drunk a mort of outland- 
ish liquors, better and worse, in the last three years, and yet never 
found aught to come up to good ale, which needs neither shoeing-horn 
before nor after, but takes care of itself, and of all honest stomachs 
too, I think.” 

“ You speak like a book, boy,” said old Cary; “ and after all, what 
a plague comes of these new-fangled hot wines, and aqua vitass, which 
have come in since the wars, but maddening of the brains, and fever 
of the blood? ” 

“ I fear we have not seen the end of that yet,” said Frank. “ My 
friends write me from the Netherlands that our men are falling into a 


Cloveiy Court i 08 

swinish trick of swilling like the Hollanders. Heaven grant that they 
may not bring home the fashion with them.” 

“A man must drink, they say, or die of the ague, in those vile 
swamps,” said Amyas. “ When they get home here, they will not 
need it.” 

Heaven grant it, ’ said Frank; “ I should be sorry to see Devon- 
shire a drunken county; and there are many of our men out there with 
Mr. Champernoun.” 

Ah,” said Cary, “ there, as in Ireland, we are proving her Majesty’s 
saying true, that Devonshire is her right hand, and the young children 
thereof like the arrows in the hand of the giant.” 

“ They may well be,” said his son, “ when some of them are giants 
themselves, like my tall schoolfellow opposite.” 

“ He will be up and doing again presently, I’ll warrant him,” said 
old Cary. 

“And that I shall,” quoth Amyas. “ I have been devising brave 
deeds ; and see in the distance enchanters to be bound, dragons choked, 
empires conquered, though not in Holland.” 

“You do?” asked Will, a little sharply; for he had had a half 
suspicion that more was meant than met the ear. 

“ Yes,” said Amyas, turning off his jest again, “ I go to what 
Raleigh calls the Land of the Nymphs. Another month, I hope, will 
see me abroad, in Ireland.” 

“Abroad? Call it rather at home,” said old Cary; “ for it is full of 
Devon men from end to end, and you will be among friends all day 
long. George Bourchier from Tawstock has the army now in Mun- 
ster, and Warham St. Leger is Marshal; George Carew is with Lord 
Grey of Wilton (Poor Peter Carew was killed at Glendalough) ; 
and after the defeat last year, when that villain Desmond cut off 
Herbert and Price, the companies were made up with six hundred 
Devon men, and Arthur Fortescue at their head; so that the old 
county holds her head as proudly in the Land of Ire as she does in the 
Low Countries and the Spanish Main.” 

“And where,” asked Amyas, “ is Davils of Marsland, who used 
to teach me how to catch trout, when I was staying down at Stow? 
He is in Ireland, too, is he not? ” 

“Ah, my lad,” said Mr. Cary, “ that is a sad story. I thought all 
England had known it.” 

“ You forget, sir, I am a stranger. Surely he is not dead? ” 

“Murdered foully, lad! Murdered like a dog, and by the man 


104 Westward Ho ! 

whom he had treated as his son, and who pretended, the false knave ! to 
call him father.” 

“ His blood is avenged? ” said Amyas fiercely. 

“ No, by heaven, not yet! Stay, don’t cry out again. I am getting 
old — I must tell my story my own way. It was last July, — was it 
not, Will? — Over comes to Ireland Saunders, one of those Jesuit 
foxes, as the Pope’s legate, with money and bulls, and a banner hal- 
lowed by the Pope, and the devil knows what beside; and with him 
James Fitzmaurice, the same fellow who had sworn on his knees to 
Perrott, in the Church at Kilmallock, to be a true liegeman to Queen 
Elizabeth, and confirmed it by all his saints, and such a world of his 
Irish howling, that Perrott told me he was fain to stop his own ears. 
Well, he had been practising with the King of France, but got nothing 
but laughter for his pains, and so went over to the Most Catholic King, 
and promises him to join Ireland to Spain, and set up popery again, 
and what not. And he, I suppose, thinking it better that Ireland 
should belong to him than to the Pope’s bastard, fits him out, and sends 
him off on such another errand as Stukely’s, — though I will say, for 
the honor of Devon, if Stukely lived like a fool, he died like an honest 
man.” 

“ Sir Thomas Stukely dead too? ” said Amyas. 

“Wait a while, lad, and yoti shall have that tragedy afterward. 
Well, where was I? Oh, Fitzmaurice and the Jesuits land at Smer- 
wick, with three ships, choose a place for a fort, bless it with their holy 
water, and their moppings and their scourings, and the rest of it, to 
purify it from the stain of heretic dominion; but in the meanwhile one 
of the Courtenays, — a Courtenay of Haccombe, was it? — or a Cour- 
tenay of Boconnock? Silence, Will, I shall have it in a minute — yes, 
a Courtenay of Haccombe it was, lying at anchor near by, in a ship 
of war of his, cuts out the three ships, and cuts off the Dons from the 
sea. John and James Desmond, with some small rabble, go over to 
the Spaniards. Earl Desmond will not join them, but will not fight 
them, and stands by to take the winning side; and then in comes poor 
Davils, sent down by the Lord Deputy to charge Desmond and his 
brothers, in the Queen’s name, to assault the Spaniards. Folks say 
it was rash of his Lordship: but I say, what could be better done? 
Every one knows that there never was a stouter or shrewder soldier 
than Davils; and the young Desmonds, I have heard him say many 
a time, used to look on him as their father. But he found out what 
it was to trust Englishmen turned Irish. Well, the Desmonds found 


Cloveiy Court 105 

out on a sudden that the Dons were such desperate Paladins, that it 
was madness to meddle, though they were five to one ; and poor Davils, 
seeing that there was no fight in them, goes back for help, and sleeps 
that night at some place called Tralee. Arthur Carter of Bideford, 
St. Leger’s lieutenant, as stout an old soldier as Davils himself, sleeps 
in the same bed with him; the lacquey-boy, who is now with Sir 
Richard at Stow, on the floor at their feet. But in the dead of night, 
who should come in but Janies Desmond, sword in hand, with a dozen 
of his ruffians at his heels, each with his glib over his ugly face, and 
his skene in his hand. Davils springs up in bed, and asks but this, 

4 What is the matter, my son? ’ whereon the treacherous villain, with- 
out giving him time to say a prayer, strikes at him, naked as he was, 
crying, 4 Thou shalt be my father no longer, nor I thy son ! Thou 
shalt die!’ and at that all the rest fall on him. The poor little lad 
(so he says) leaps up to cover his master with his naked body, gets 
three or four stabs of skenes, and so falls for dead; with his master 
and Captain Carter, who were dead indeed — God reward them! 
After that the ruffians ransacked the house, till they had murdered 
every Englishman in it, the lacquey-boy only excepted, who crawled 
out, wounded as he was, through a window; while Desmond, if you 
will believe it, went back, up to his elbows in blood, and vaunted his 
deeds to the Spaniards, and asked them — 4 There ! Will you take 
that as a pledge that I am faithful to you? ’ And that, my lad, was 
the end of Henry Davils, and will be of all who trust to the faith of 
wild savages.” 

44 1 would go a hundred miles to see that Desmond hanged! ” said 
Amvas, while great tears ran down his face. 44 Poor Mr. Davils! 
And now, what is the story of Sir Thomas? ” 

“Your brother must tell you that, lad; I am somewhat out of 
breath.” 

“And I have a right to tell it,” said Frank, with a smile. “ Do you 
know that I was very near being Earl of the bog of Allen, and one 
of the peers of the realm to King Buoncompagna, son and heir to his 
Holiness Pope Gregory the Thirteenth?” 

44 No, surely! ” 

44 As I am a gentleman. When I was at Rome I saw poor Stukely 
often; and this and more he offered me on the part (as he said) of the 
Pope, if I would just oblige him in the two little matters of being 
reconciled to the Catholic Church, and joining the invasion of Ire- 
land.” 


106 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Poor deluded heretic,” said Will Cary, “ to have lost an earldom 
for your family by such silly scruples of lo3 r alty ! ” 

“ It is not a matter for jesting, after all,” said Frank; “ but I saw 
Sir Thomas often, and I cannot believe he was in his senses, so frantic 
was his vanity and his ambition ; and all the while, in private matters 
as honorable a gentleman as ever. However, he sailed at last for 
Ireland, with his eight hundred Spaniards and Italians; and what is 
more, I know that the King of Spain paid their charges. Marquis 
Vinola — J ames Buoncompagna, that is — stayed quietly at Rome, pre- 
ferring that Stukely should conquer his paternal heritage of Ireland 
for him while he took care of the bona robas at home. I went down to 
Civita V ecchia to see him off ; and though his younger by many years, 
I could not but take the liberty of entreating him, as a gentleman and 
a man of Devon, to consider his faith to his Queen and the honor of 
his country. There were high words between us; God forgive me if 
I spoke too fiercely, for I never saw him again.” 

“ Too fiercely to an open traitor, Frank? Why not have run him 
through? ” 

“Nay, I had no clean life for Sundays, Amyas; so I could not 
throw away my week-day one; and as for the weal of England, I knew 
that it was little he would damage it, and told him so. And at that he 
waxed utterly mad, for it touched his pride, and swore that if the wind 
had not been fair for sailing, he would have fought me there and then; 
to which I could only answer, that I was ready to meet him when he 
would; and he parted from me, saying, ‘ It is a pity, sir, I cannot fight 
you now; when next we meet, it will be beneath my dignity to 
measure swords with you.’ 

“ I suppose he expected to come back a prince at least — Heaven 
knows ; I owe him no ill-will, nor I hope does any man. He has paid 
all debts now in full, and got his receipt for them.” 

“ How did he die, then, after all? ” 

“ On his voyage he touched in Portugal. King Sebastian was just 
sailing for Africa with his new ally, Mohammed the Prince of Fez, to 
help King Abdallah, and conquer what he could. He persuaded 
Stukely to go with him. There were those who thought that he as 
well as the Spaniards, had no stomach for seeing the Pope’s son King 
of Ireland. Others used to say that he thought an island too small 
for his ambition, and must needs conquer a continent — I know not 
why it was, but he went. They had heavy weather in the passage ; and 
when they landed, many of their soldiers were sea-sick. Stukely, 


Cloveiy Court 107 

reasonably enough, counselled that they should wait two or three days 
and recruit; but Don Sebastian was so mad for the assault, that he 
must needs have his veni, vidi , vici; and so ended with a veni, vidi, 
perii ; for he, Abdallah, and his son Mohammed, all perished in the first 
battle of Alcasar; and Stukely, surrounded and overpowered, fought 
till he could fight no more, and then died like a hero with all his 
wounds in front; and may God have mercy on his soul! ” 

“Ah! ” said Amyas, “ we heard of that battle off Lima, but noth- 
ing about poor Stukely. ,, 

“ That last was a Popish prayer. Master Frank,” said old Mr. Cary. 

“ Most worshipful sir, you surely would not wish God not to have 
mercy on his soul? ” 

“ No — eh? Of course not: but that’s all settled by now, for he is 
dead, poor fellow.” 

“ Certainly, my dear sir. And you cannot help being a little fond 
of him still.” 

“Eh? why, I should be a brute if I were not. He and I were 
schoolfellows, though he was somewhat the younger; and many a good 
thrashing have I given him, and one cannot help having a tenderness 
for a man after that. Beside, we used to hunt together in Exmoor, 
and have royal nights afterward into Ilfracombe, when we were a 
couple of mad young blades. Fond of him? Why, I would have 
sooner given my forefinger than that he should have gone to the 
dogs thus.” 

“ Then, my dear sir, if you feel for him still, in spite of all his 
faults, how do you know that God may not feel for him still, in spite 
of all his faults? For my part,” quoth Frank in his fanciful way, 
“ without believing in that Popish Purgatory, I cannot help holding 
with Plato, that such heroical souls, who have wanted but little of true 
greatness, are hereafter by some strait discipline brought to a better 
mind; perhaps, as many ancients have held with the Indian Gymnoso- 
phists, by transmigration into the bodies of those animals whom they 
have resembled in their passions; and indeed, if Sir Thomas Stukely’s 
soul should now animate the body of a lion, all I can say is that he 
would be a very valiant and royal lion; and also doubtless become in 
due time heartily ashamed and penitent for having been nothing better 
than a lion.” 

“ What now, Master Frank? I don’t trouble my head with such 
matters — I say Stukely was a right good-hearted fellow at bottom; 
and if you plague my head with any of your dialectics, and proposi- 


108 


Westward Ho ! 

tions, and college quips and quiddities, you shan’t have any more sack, 
sir! But here come the knaves, and I hear the cook knock to dinner.” 

After a madrigal or two, and an Italian song of Master Frank’s, all 
which went sweetly enough, the ladies rose and went. Whereon Will 
Cary, drawing his chair close to Frank’s, put quietly into his hand a 
dirty letter. 

“ This was the letter left for me,” whispered he, “ by a country 
fellow this morning. Look at it, and tell me what I am to do.” 

Whereon Frank opened, and read — 

“ Mister Cary, be you wary, 

By deer park end to-night. 

Yf Irish ffoxe com out of rocks 
Grip and hold hym tight.’ ’ 

“ I would have showed it my father,” said Will, “ but ” 

“ I verily believe it to be a blind. See now, this is the handwriting 
of a man who has been trying to write vilely, and yet cannot. Look 
at that B, and that G; their formae formativae never were begotten in 
a hedge-school. And what is more, this is no Devon man’s handiwork. 
We say ‘ to ’ and not * by,’ Will, eh? in the West country? ” 

“ Of course.” 

“And ‘ man,’ instead of ‘ him ’? ” 

“ True, O Daniel! But am I to do nothing therefore? ” 

“ On that matter I am no judge. Let us ask much-enduring 
Ulysses here ; perhaps he has not sailed round the world without bring- 
ing home a device or two.” 

Whereon Amyas was called to counsel, as soon as Mr. Cary could 
be stopped in a long cross-examination of him as to Mr. Doughty’s 
famous trial and execution. 

Amyas pondered a while, thrusting his hands into his long curls; 
and then — 

“ Will, my lad, have you been watching at the Deer Park End 
of late? ” 

“ Never.” 

“Where, then?” 

“At the town-beach.” 

“ Where else? ” 

“At the town-head.” 

“ Where else?” 

“ Why, the fellow is turned lawyer! Above Freshwater.” 


Clovelly* Court 109 

“ Where is Freshwater? ’ 

“ Why, where the waterfall comes over the cliff, half a mile from 
the town. There is a path there up into the forest.” 

“ I know. I’ll watch there to-night. Do you keep all your old 
haunts safe, of course, and send a couple of stout knaves to the mill, 
to watch the beach at the Deer Park End, on the chance; for your 
poet may be a true man, after all. But my heart’s faith is, that this 
comes just to draw you off from some old beat of yours, upon a wild 
goose chase. If they shoot the miller by mistake, I suppose it don’t 
much matter? ” 

“ Marry, no. 

“ ‘When a miller’s knock’d on the head, 

The less of flour makes the more of bread.’ ” 

“ Or, again,” chimed in old Mr. Cary, “ as they say in the North — 

“ ‘Find a miller that will not steal, 

Or a webster that is leal, 

Or a priest that is not greedy, 

And lay them three a dead corpse by; 

And by the virtue of them three, 

The said dead corpse shall quicken’d be.’ ” 

“ But why are you so ready to watch Freshwater to-night, Master 
Amyas? ” 

“ Because, sir, those who come, if they come, will never land at 
Mouthmill; if they are strangers, they dare not; and if they are bay’s- 
men, they are too wise, as long as the westerly swell sets in. As for 
landing at the town, that would be too great a risk; but Freshwater 
is as lonely as the Bermudas ; and they can beach a boat up under the 
cliff at all tides, and in all weathers, except north and nor’west. I 
have done it many a time, when I was a boy.” 

“And give us the fruit of your experience now in your old age, eh? 
Well, you have a gray head on green shoulders, my lad; and I verily 
believe you are right. Who will you take with you to watch? M 

“ Sir,” said Frank, “ I will go with my brother; and that will be 
enough.” 

“ Enough? He is big enough, and you brave enough, for ten; but 
still, the more the merrier.” 

“ But the fewer, the better fare. If I might ask a first and last 
favor, worshipful sir,” said Frank, very earnestly, “ you would grant 
me two things: that you would let none go to Freshwater but me 


110 


Westward Ho ! 

and my brother; and that whatsoever we shall bring you back shall be 
kept as secret as the commonweal and your loyalty shall permit. I 
trust that we are not so unknown to you, or to others, that you can 
doubt for a moment but that whatsoever we may do will satisfy at 
once your honor and our own.” 

“ My dear young gentleman, there is no need of so many courtier’s 
words. I am your father’s friend, and yours. And God forbid that 
a Cary — for I guess your drift — should ever wish to make a head or a 
heart ache; that is, more than ” 

“ Those of whom it is written, ‘ Though thou bray a fool in a 
mortar, yet will not his folly depart from him,’ ” interposed Frank, 
in so sad a tone that no one at the table replied; and few more words 
were exchanged, till the two brothers were safe outside the house; 
and then — 

“Amyas,” said Frank, “ that was a Devon man’s handiwork, never- 
theless; it was Eustace’s handwriting.” 

“ Impossible! ” 

“ No, lad. I have been secretary to a prince, and learned to in- 
terpret cipher, and to watch every penstroke; and, young as I am, I 
think that I am not easily deceived. Would God I were! Come on, 
lad ; and strike no man hastily, lest thou cut off thine own flesh.” 

So forth the two went, along the park to the eastward, and past the 
head of the little wood-embosomed fishing-town, a steep stair of houses 
clinging to the cliff far below them, the bright slate roofs and white 
walls, glittering in the moonlight; and on some half mile farther, along 
the steep hillside, fenced with oak wood down to the water’s edge, by 
a narrow forest path, to a point where two glens meet and pour their 
streamlets over a cascade some hundred feet in height into the sea 
below. By the side of this waterfall a narrow path climbs upward 
from the beach; and here it was that the two brothers expected to meet 
the messenger. 

Frank insisted on taking his station below Amyas. He said that 
he was certain that Eustace himself would make his appearance, and 
that he was more fit than Amyas to bring him to reason by parley; 
that if Amyas would keep watch some twenty yards above, the escape 
of the messenger would be impossible. Moreover, he was the elder 
brother, and the post of honor was his right. So Amyas obeyed him, 
after making him promise that if more than one man came up the path, 
he would let them pass him before he challenged, so that both might 
bring them to bay at the same time. 


Clovelly Court m 

So Amyas took his station under a high marl bank, and, bedded in 
luxuriant crown-ferns, kept his eye steadily on Frank, who sat down 
on a little knoll of rock (where is now a garden on the cliff-edge) 
which parts the path and the dark chasm down which the stream rushes 
to its final leap over the cliff. 

There Amyas sat a full half hour, and glanced at whiles from Frank 
to look upon the scene around. Outside the southwest wind blew 
fresh and strong, and the moonlight danced upon a thousand crests of 
foam; but within the black jagged point which sheltered the town, the 
sea did but heave, in long oily swells of rolling silver, onward into the 
black shadow of the hills, within which the town and pier lay invisible, 
save where a twinkling light gave token of some lonely fisher’s wife, 
watching the weary night through for the boat which would return 
with dawn. Here and there upon the sea, a black speck marked a 
herring-boat, drifting with its line of nets ; and right off the mouth of 
the glen, Amyas saw, with a beating heart, a large two-masted vessel 
lying-to — that must be the Portugal ! Eagerly he looked up the 
glen, and listened ; but he heard nothing but the sweeping of the wind 
across the downs five hundred feet above, and the sough of the water- 
fall upon the rocks below; he saw nothing but the vast black sheets of 
oak-wood sloping up to the narrow blue sky above, and the broad 
bright hunter’s moon, and the woodcocks, which, chuckling to each 
other, hawked to and fro, like swallows, between the tree-tops and the 
sky. 

At last he heard a rustle of the fallen leaves; he shrank closer and 
closer into the darkness of the bank. Then swift light steps — not 
down the path, from above, but upward, from below; his heart beat 
quick and loud. And in another half minute a man came in sight, 
within three yards of Frank’s hiding-place. 

Frank sprang out instantly. Amyas saw his bright blade glance 
in the clear October moonlight. 

“ Stand, in the Queen’s name! ” 

The man drew a pistol from under his cloak, and fired full in his 
face. Had it happened in these days of detonators, Frank’s chance 
had been small; but to get a ponderous wheel-lock under weigh was a 
longer business, and before the fizzing of the flint had ceased, Frank 
had struck up the pistol with his rapier, and it exploded harmlessly 
over his head. The man instantly dashed the weapon in his face, and 
closed. 

The blow, luckily, did not take effect on that delicate forehead, but 


112 


Westward Ho I 

struck him in the shoulder: nevertheless, Frank, who with all his grace 
and agility was as fragile as a lily, and a very bubble of the earth, 
staggered, and lost his guard, and before he could recover himself, 
Amyas saw a dagger gleam, and one, two, three blows fiercely re- 
peated. 

Mad with fury, he was with them in an instant. They were 
scuffling together so closely in the shade that he was afraid to use his 
sword point ; but with the hilt he dealt a single blow full on the ruffian’s 
cheek. It was enough; with a hideous shriek, the fellow rolled over at 
his feet, and Amyas set his foot on him, in act to run him through. 

“ Stop! stay! ” almost screamed Frank; “ it is Eustace! our cousin 
Eustace ! ” and he leaned against a tree. 

Amyas sprang toward him: but Frank waved him off. 

“ It is nothing — a scratch. He has papers: I am sure of it. Take 
them; and for God’s sake let him go! ” 

“ Villain! give me your papers! ” cried Amyas, setting his foot once 
more on the writhing Eustace, whose jaw was broken across. 

“ You struck me foully from behind,” moaned he, his vanity and 
envy even then coming out, in that faint and foolish attempt to prove 
Amyas not so very much better a man. 

“ Hound, do you think that I dare not strike you in front? Give 
me your papers, letters, whatever Popish devilry you carry; or as I 
live, I will cut off your head, and take them myself, even if it cost me 
the shame of stripping your corpse. Give them up ! Traitor, mur- 
derer! give them, I say!” And setting his foot on him afresh, he 
raised his sword. 

Eustace was usually no craven: but he was cowed. Between agony 
and shame, he had no heart to resist. Martyrdom, which looked so 
splendid when consummated selon les regies on Tower Hill or Tyburn, 
before pitying, or (still better) scoffing multitudes, looked a confused, 
dirty, ugly business there in the dark forest; and as he lay, a stream 
of moonlight bathed his mighty cousin’s broad clear forehead, and his 
long golden locks, and his white terrible blade, till he seemed, to 
Eustace’s superstitious eye, like one of those fair young St. Michaels 
trampling on the fiend, which he had seen abroad in old German 
pictures. He shuddered; pulled a packet from his bosom, and threw 
it from him, murmuring, “ I have not given it.” 

“ Swear to me that these are all the papers which you have, in 
cipher or out of cipher. Swear on your soul, or you die! ” 

Eustace swore. 


Clovelly* Court ns 

“ Tell me, who are your accomplices? ” 

“Never!” said Eustace. “Cruel! have you not degraded me 
enough already? ” and the wretched young man burst into tears, and 
hid his bleeding face in his hands. 

One hint of honor made Amyas as gentle as a lamb. He lifted 
Eustace up, and bade him run for his life. 

“ I am to owe my life, then, to you? ” 

“ Not in the least; only to your being a Leigh. Go, or it will be 
worse for you ! ” And Eustace went ; while Amyas, catching up the 
precious packet, hurried to Frank. He had fainted already, and his 
brother had to carry him as far as the park, before he could find any 
of the other watchers. The blind, as far as they were concerned, was 
complete. They had heard and seen nothing. Whosoever had 
brought the packet had landed they knew not where; and so all re- 
turned to the Court, carrying Frank, who recovered gradually, having 
rather bruises than wounds; for his foe had struck wildly, and with 
a trembling hand. 

Half an hour after, Amyas, Mr. Cary, and his son Will were in 
deep consultation over the following epistle, the only paper in the 
packet which was not in cipher: — 

Dear Brother N. S. in Ch t0 ■ et Ecclesia. 

“ This is to inform you, and the friends of the cause, that S. 
Josephus has landed in Smerwick, with eight hundred valiant Cru- 
saders, burning with holy zeal to imitate last year’s martyrs of Carrig- 
folium, and to expiate their offenses (which I fear may have been 
many) by the propagation of our most holy faith. I have purified 
the fort (which they are strenuously rebuilding) with prayer and holy 
water, from the stain of heretical footsteps, and consecrated it afresh 
to the service of Heaven, as the first-fruits of the isle of saints; and 
having displayed the consecrated banner to the adoration of the faith- 
ful, have returned to Earl Desmond, that I may establish his faith, 
weak as yet, by reason of the allurements of this world: though since, 
by the valor of his brother James, he that hindered was taken out of 
the way (I mean Davils the heretic, sacrifice well-pleasing in the eyes 
of Heaven!) the young man has lent a more obedient ear to my coun- 
sels. If you can do anything, do it quickly, for a great door and 
effectual is opened, and there are many adversaries. But be swift, 
for so do the poor lambs of the Church tremble at the fury of the 


114 


Westward Ho ! 

heretics, that a hundred will flee before one Englishman. And in- 
deed, were it not for that divine charity toward the Church (which 
covers the multitude of sins) with which they are resplendent, neither 
they nor their country would be, by the carnal judgment, counted 
worthy of so great labor in their behalf. For they themselves are 
given much to lying, theft, and drunkenness, vain babbling, and pro- 
fane dancing and singing; and are still, as S. Gildas reports of them, 
4 more careful to shroud their villainous faces in bushy hair, than de- 
cently to cover their bodies ; ’ while their land ( by reason of the 
tyranny of their chieftains, and the continual wars and plunderings 
among their tribes, which leave them weak and divided, an easy prey 
to the myrmidons of the excommunicate and usurping Englishwoman) 
lies utterly waste with fire, and defaced with corpses of the starved 
and slain. But what are these things, while the holy virtue of Catholic 
obedience still flourishes in their hearts? The Church cares not for 
the conservation of body and goods, but of immortal souls. 

44 If any devout lady shall so will, you may obtain from her liberality 
a shirt for this worthless tabernacle, and also a pair of hose ; for I am 
unsavory to myself and to others, and of such luxuries none here has 
superfluity ; for all live in holy poverty, except the fleas, who have that 
consolation in this world for which this unhappy nation, and those who 
labor among them, must wait till the world to come . 1 

44 Your loving brother, 

44 N. S.” 

44 Sir Richard must know of this before daybreak,’’ cried old Cary. 
44 Eight hundred men landed ! We must call out the Posse Comitatus, 
and sail with them bodily. I will go myself, old as I am. Spaniards 
in Ireland? not a dog of them must go home again.” 

44 Not a dog of them,” answered Will; 44 but where is Mr. Winter 
and his squadron? ” 

44 Safe in Milford Haven; a messenger must be sent to him too.” 

44 I’ll go,” said Amyas: 44 but Mr. Cary is right. Sir Richard must 
know all first.” 

44 And we must have those Jesuits.” 

44 What? Mr. Evans and Mr. Morgans? God help us — they are 
at my uncle’s ! Consider the honor of our family ! ” 

44 Judge for yourself, my dear boy,” said old Mr. Cary, gently: 
44 would it not be rank treason to let these foxes escape, while we have 
this damning proof against them? ” 

‘See note at end of chapter. 


Clovelly Court 115 

“ I will go myself then.” 

“ Why not? You may keep all straight, and Will shall go with you. 
Call a groom, Will, and get your horse saddled, and my Yorkshire 
gray ; he will make better play with this big fellow on his back than 
the little pony astride of which Mr. Leigh came walking in (as I 
hear) this morning. As for Frank, the ladies will see to him well 
enough, and glad enough, too, to have so fine a bird in their cage for 
a week or two.” 

“And my mother? ” 

“ We’ll send to her to-morrow by daybreak. Come, a stirrup cup 
to start with, hot and hot. Now, boots, cloaks, swords, deep pull 
and a warm one, and away! ” 

And the jolly old man bustled them out of the house and into their 
saddles, under the broad bright winter’s moon. 

“ You must make your pace, lads, or the moon will be down before 
you are over the moors.” And so away they went. 

Neither of them spoke for many a mile. Amyas, because his mind 
was fixed firmly on the one object of saving the honor of his house; 
and Will, because he was hesitating between Ireland and the wars, and 
Rose Salterne and love-making. At last he spoke suddenly. 

“ I’ll go, Amyas.” 

“ Whither? ” 

“ To Ireland with you, old man. I have dragged my anchor at 
last.” 

“ What anchor, my lad of parables? ” 

“ See, here am I, a tall and gallant ship.” 

“ Modest even if not true.” 

“ Inclination, like an anchor, holds me tight.” 

“ To the mud.” 

“ Nay, to a bed of roses — not without their thorns.” 

“ Hillo? I have seen oysters grow on fruit-trees before now, but 
never an anchor in a rose-garden.” 

“ Silence or my allegory will go to noggin-staves.” 

“Against the rocks of my flinty discernment.” 

“ Pooh — well. Up comes duty like a jolly breeze, blowing dead 
from the northeast and as bitter and cross as a northeaster too, and 
tugs me away toward Ireland. I hold on by the rose bed any ground 
in a storm— till every strand is parted, and off I go, westward ho! to 
get my throat cut in a bog-hole with Amyas Leigh.” 

“ Earnest, Will? ” 


116 


Westward Ho ! 

“As I am a sinful man.” 

“ Well done, young hawk of the White Cliff! ” 

“ I had rather have called it Gallantry Bower still, though,” said 
Will, punning on the double name of the noble precipice which forms 
the highest point of the deer park. 

“ Well, as long as you are on land, you know it is Gallantry Bower 
still: but we always call it White Cliff when you see it from the sea- 
board, as you and I shall do, I hope, to-morrow evening.” 

“ What, so soon? ” 

“ Dare we lose a day? ” 

“ I suppose not: heigh-ho! ” 

And they rode on again in silence, Amyas in the meanwhile being 
not a little content (in spite of his late self-renunciation) to find 
that one of his rivals at least was going to raise the siege of the Rose 
garden for a few months, and withdraw his forces to the coast of 
Kerry. 

As they went over Bursdon, Amyas pulled up suddenly. 

“ Did you not hear a horse’s step on our left? ” 

“ On our left — coming up from Welsford moor? Impossible at 
this time of night. It must have been a stag, or a sownder of wild 
swine : or may be only an old cow.” 

“ It was the ring of iron, friend. Let us stand and watch.” 

Bursdon and Welsford were then, as now, a rolling range of dreary 
moors, unbroken by tor or tree, or anything save few and far between 
a world-old furze-bank which marked the common rights of some dis- 
tant cattle farm, and crossed then, not as now, by a decent road, but 
by a rough confused trackway, the remnant of an old Roman road 
from Clovelly dikes to Launceston. To the left it trended down to- 
ward a lower range of moors, which form the water-shed of the heads 
of Torridge; and thither the two young men peered down over the 
expanse of bog and furze, which glittered for miles beneath the moon, 
one sheet of frosted silver, in the heavy autumn dew. 

“ If any of Eustace’s party are trying to get home from Fresh- 
water, they might save a couple of miles by coming across Welsford, 
instead of going by the main track, as we have done.” So said Amyas, 
who though (luckily for him) no “ genius,” was cunning as a fox in 
all matters of tactic and practic, and would have in these days proved 
his right to be considered an intellectual person by being a thorough 
man of business. 

“ If any of his party are mad, they’ll try it, and be stogged till the 


Clovelly Court in 

day of judgment. There are bogs in the bottom twenty feet deep. 
Plague on the fellow whoever he is, he has dodged us! Look 
there ! ” 

It was too true. The unknown horseman had evidently dismounted 
below, and led his horse up on the other side of a long furze-dike; till 
coming to the point where it turned away again from his intended 
course, he appeared against the sky, in the act of leading his nag over 
a gap. 

“ Ride like the wind ! 55 and both youths galloped across furze and 
heather at him ; but ere they were within a hundred yards of him, he 
had leaped again on his horse, and was away far ahead. 

“ There is the dor to us, with a vengeance,” cried Cary, putting in 
the spurs. 

“ It is but a lad; we shall never catch him.” 

“ I’ll try, though; and do you lumber after as you can, old heavy- 
sides; ” and Cary pushed forward. 

Amy as lost sight of him for ten minutes, and then came up with 
him dismounted, and feeling disconsolately at his horse’s knees. 

“ Look for my head. It lies somewhere about among the furze 
there ; and oh ! I am as full of needles as ever was a pin-cushion.” 

“Are his knees broken? ” 

“ I daren’t look. No, I believe not. Come along, and make the 
best of a bad matter. The fellow is a mile ahead, and to the right, 
too.” 

“ He is going for Moorwinstow, then; but where is my cousin? ” 

“ Behind us, I dare say. We shall nab him at least.” 

“ Cary, promise me that if we do, you will keep out of sight, and let 
me manage him.” 

“ My boy, I only want Evan Morgans and Morgan Evans. He is 
but the cat’s-paw, and we are after the cats themselves.” 

And so they went on another dreary six miles, till the land trended 
downward, showing dark glens and masses of woodland far below. 

“ Now, then, straight to Chapel, and stop the foxes’ earth? Or 
through the King’s park to Stow, and get out Sir Richard’s hounds, 
hue and cry, and Queen’s warrant in proper form? ” 

“ Let us see Sir Richard first; and whatsoever he decides about my 
uncle, I will endure as a loyal subject must.” 

So they rode through the King’s park, while Sir Richard’s colts 
came whinnying and staring round the intruders, and down through a 
rich woodland lane five hundred feet into the valley, till they could 


118 


Westward Ho S 

hear the brawling of the little trout-stream, and beyond, the everlast- 
ing thunder of the ocean surf. 

Down through warm woods, all fragrant with dying autumn 
flowers, leaving far above the keen Atlantic breeze, into one of those 
delicious western eoombes, and so past the mill, and the little knot of 
flower-clad cottages. In the window of one of them a light was still 
burning. The two young men knew well whose window that was; 
and both hearts beat fast; for Rose Salterne slept, or rather seemed 
to wake, in that chamber. 

“ Folks are late in Combe to-night,” said Amyas, as carelessly as 
he could. 

Cary looked earnestly at the window, and then sharply enough at 
Amyas ; but Amyas was busy settling his stirrup ; and Cary rode on, 
unconscious that every fibre in his companion’s huge frame was 
trembling like his own. 

“ Muggy and close down here,” said Amyas, who, in reality, was 
quite faint with his own inward struggles. 

“We shall be at Stow gate in five minutes,” said Cary, looking back 
and down longingly as his horse climbed the opposite hill; but a turn 
of the zigzag road hid the cottage, and the next thought was, how to 
effect an entrance into Stow at three in the morning without being 
eaten by the ban-dogs, who were already howling and growling at the 
sound of the horse-hoofs. 

However, they got safely in, after much knocking and calling, 
through the postern-gate in the high west wall, into a mansion, the 
description whereof I must defer to the next chapter, seeing that the 
moon has already sunk into the Atlantic, and there is darkness over 
land and sea. 

Sir Richard, in his long gown, was soon down-stairs in the hall; the 
letter read, and the story told ; but ere it was half finished — 

“Anthony, call up a groom, and let him bring me a horse round. 
Gentlemen, if you will excuse me five minutes, I shall be at your 
service.” 

“You will not go alone, Richard? ” asked Lady Grenvile, putting 
her beautiful face in its night-coif out of an adjoining door. 

“ Surely, sweet chuck, we three are enough to take two poor pole- 
cats of Jesuits. Go in, and help me to boot and gird.” 

In half an hour they were down and up across the valley again, un- 
der the few low ashes clipped flat by the sea-breeze which stood round 
the lonely gate of Chapel. 


CloveUy Court 119 

“ Mr. Cary, there is a back path across the downs to Marsland ; go 
and guard that.” Cary rode off; and Sir Richard, as he knocked 
loudly at the gate — 

“ Mr. Leigh, you see that I have consulted your honor, and that of 
your poor uncle, by adventuring thus alone. What will you have me 
do now, which may not be unfit for me and you? ” 

“ Oh, sir!” said Amyas, with tears in his honest eyes, “you have 
shown yourself once more what you always have been — my dear and 
beloved master on earth, not second even to my admiral Sir Francis 
Drake.” 

“ Or the Queen, I hope,” said Grenvile, smiling, “ but pocas pala- 
bras. What will you do? ” 

“ My wretched cousin, sir, may not have returned — and if I might 
watch for him on the main road — unless you want me with you.” 

“ Richard Grenvile can walk alone, lad. But what will you do 
with your cousin? ” 

“ Send him out of the country, never to return; or if he refuses, run 
him through on the spot.” 

“ Go, lad.” And as he spoke, a sleepy voice asked inside the gate, 
“ Who was there? ” 

“ Sir Richard Grenvile. Open, in the Queen’s name? ” 

“ Sir Richard? He is in bed, and be hanged to you. No honest 
folk come at this hour of night.” 

“Amyas!” shouted Sir Richard. Amyas rode back. 

“ Burst that gate for me, while I hold your horse.” 

Amyas leaped down, took up a rock from the roadside, such as 
Homer’s heroes used to send at each other’s heads, and in an instant 
the door was flat on the ground, and the serving-man on his back in- 
side, while Sir Richard quietly entering over it, like Una into the hut, 
told the fellow to get up and hold his horse for him (which the clod, 
who knew well enough that terrible voice, did without further mur- 
murs), and then strode straight to the front door. It was already 
opened. The household had been up and about all along, or the noise 
at the entry had aroused them. 

Sir Richard knocked, however, at the open door; and, to his aston- 
ishment, his knock was answered by Mr. Leigh himself, fully dressed, 
and candle in hand. 

“ Sir Richard Grenvile! What, sir! is this neighborly, not to say 
gentle, to break into my house in the dead of night? ” 

“ I broke your outer door, sir, because I was refused entrance when 


120 


Westward Ho ! 

I asked m the Queen’s name. I knocked at your inner one, as I 
should have knocked at the poorest cottager’s in the parish, because 
I found it open. You have two Jesuits here, sir! and here is the 
Queen’s warrant for apprehending them. I have signed it with my 
own hand, and, moreover, serve it now, with my own hand, in order 
to save you scandal — and it may be, worse. I must have these men, 
Mr. Leigh.” 

“ My dear Sir Richard! ” 

“ I must have them, or I must search the house; and you would not 
put either yourself or me to so shameful a necessity? ” 

“ My dear Sir Richard! ” 

“ Must I, then, ask you to stand back from your own doorway, my 
dear sir? ” said Grenvile. And then changing his voice to that fearful 
lion’s roar, for which he was famous, and which it seemed impossible 
that lips so delicate could utter, he thundered, “ Knaves behind there! 
Back!” 

This was spoken to half a dozen grooms and serving-men, who, well 
armed, were clustered in the passage. 

“ What? swords out, you sons of cliff rabbits? ” And in a moment, 
Sir Richard’s long blade flashed out also, and putting Mr. Leigh 
gently aside, as if he had been a child, he walked up to the party, 
who vanished right and left; having expected a cur dog, in the shape 
of a parish constable, and come upon a lion instead. They were stout 
fellows enough, no doubt, in a fair fight: but they had no stomach to 
be hanged in a row at Launceston Castle, after a preliminary running 
through the body by that redoubted admiral and most unpeaceful 
justice of the peace. 

‘And now, my dear Mr. Leigh,” said Sir Richard, as blandly as 
ever, “ where are my men? The night is cold; and you, as well as I, 
need to be in our beds.” 

“ The men, Sir Richard — the Jesuits — they are not here, indeed.” 

“ Not here, sir? ” 

“ On the word of a gentleman, they left my house an hour ago. 
Believe me, sir, they did. I will swear to you, if you need.” 

“ I believe Mr. Leigh of Chapel’s word without oaths. Whither 
are they gone? ” 

“ Nay, sir — how can I tell? they are — they are, as I may say, fled, 
sir; escaped.” 

“ With your connivance; at least with your son’s. Where are they 
gone? ” 


Cloveiy Court 121 

“ As I live, I do not know.” 

“ Mr. Leigh — is this possible? Can you add untruth to that treason 
from the punishment of which I am trying to shield you? ” 

Poor Mr. Leigh burst into tears. 

“ Oh! my God! my God! is it come to this? Over and above having 
the fear and anxiety of keeping these black rascals in my house, and 
having to stop their villainous mouths every minute, for fear they 
should hang me and themselves, I am to be called a traitor and a liar 
in my old age, and that, too, by Richard Grenville! Would God I 
had never been born! Would God I had no soul to be saved, and I’d 
just go and drown care in drink, and let the Queen and the Pope 
fight it out their own way ! ” And the poor old man sank into a chair, 
and covered his face with his hands, and then leaped up again. 

“ Bless my heart ! Excuse me, Sir Richard — to sit down and leave 
you standing. ’Slife, sir, sorrow is making a hawbuck of me. Sit 
down, my dear sir! my worshipful sir! or rather, come with me into 
my room, and hear a poor wretched man’s story, for I swear before 
God the men are fled; and my poor boy Eustace is not home either, 
and the groom tells me that his devil of a cousin has broken his jaw 
for him; and his mother is all but mad this hour past. Good lack! 
good lack ! ” 

“ He nearly murdered his angel of a cousin, sir! ” said Sir Richard 
severely. 

“ What, sir? They never told me.” 

“ He had stabbed his cousin Frank three times, sir, before Amyas, 
who is as noble a lad as walks God’s earth, struck him down. And in 
defense of what, forsooth, did he play the ruffian and the swash- 
buckler, but to bring home to your house this letter, sir, which you 
shall hear at your leisure, the moment I have taken order about your 
priests.” And walking out of the house, he went round and called 
to Cary to come to him. 

“ The birds are flown, Will,” whispered he. 44 There is but one 
chance for us, and that is Marsland Mouth. If they are trying to 
take boat there, you may be yet in time. If they are gone inland we 
can do nothing till we raise the hue and cry to-morrow.” 

And Will galloped off over the downs toward Marsland, while Sir 
Richard ceremoniously walked in again, and professed himself ready 
and happy to have the honor of an audience in Mr. Leigh’s private 
chamber. ~ And as we know pretty well already what was to be dis- 
cussed therein, we had better go over to Marsland Mouth, and, if pos- 


122 


Westward Ho ! 

sible, arrive there before Will Cary: seeing that he arrived hot and 
swearing, half an hour too late. 

Note . — I have shrunk somewhat from giving these and other sketches (true 
and accurate as I believe them to be) of Ireland during Elizabeth’s reign, when 
the tyranny and lawlessness of the feudal chiefs had reduced the island to such 
a state of weakness and barbarism, that it was absolutely necessary for England 
either to crush the Norman-Irish nobility, and organize some sort of law and 
order, or to leave Ireland an easy prey to the Spaniards, or any other nation 
which should go to war with us. The work was done — clumsily rather than 
cruelly; but wrongs were inflicted, and avenged by fresh wrongs, and those by 
fresh again. May the memory of them perish for ever! It has been reserved 
for this age, and for the liberal policy of this age, to see the last ebullitions of 
Celtic excitability die out harmless and ashamed of itself, and to find that the 
Irishman, when he is brought as a soldier under the regenerative influence of 
law, discipline, self-respect, and loyalty, can prove himself a worthy rival of the 
more stern Norse-Saxon warrior. God grant that the military brotherhood 
between Irish and English, which is the especial glory of the present war, may 
be the germ of a brotherhood industrial, political, and hereafter, perhaps, re- 
ligious also ; and that not merely the corpses of heroes, but the feuds and wrongs 
which have parted them for centuries, may lie buried, once and forever, in the 
noble graves of Alma and Inkerman. 

s 



sSir Richacra Grenvile 


CHAPTER VI . 

The Coomkes of itie Far West, 

‘‘Far, far, from hence 
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay 
Among the green Illyrian hills, and there 
The sunshine in. the happy glens is fair, 

And by the sea, and in the brakes 
The grass is cool, the sea-side air 
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers 
More virginal and sweet than ours. ’ ’ 

Matthew Arnold. 

And even such are those delightful glens, which cut the high table- 
land of the confines of Devon and Cornwall, and opening each through 
its gorge of down and rock, toward the boundless Western Ocean. 
Each is like the other, and each is like no other English scenery. Each 
has its upright Avails, inland of rich oak-wood, nearer the sea of dark 
green furze, then of smooth turf, then of weird black cliffs Avhich range 
out right and left far into the deep sea, in castles, spires, and wings of 
jagged iron-stone. Each has its narrow strip of fertile meadoAV, its 
crystal trout stream Avinding across and across from one hill-foot to the 
other; its gray stone mill, Avith the Avater sparkling and humming 
round the dripping AA heel; its dark rock pools above the tide mark, 
where the salmon-trout gather in from their Atlantic wanderings, 
after each autumn flood; its ridge of bloAvn sand, bright Avith golden 
trefoil and crimson lady’s finger; its gray bank of polished pebbles, 
doAvn which the stream rattles toward the sea below. Each has its 
black field of jagged shark’s-tooth rock \A r hich paves the cove from side 
to side, streaked Avith here and there a pink line of shell sand, and 
laced Avith Avhite foam from the eternal surge, stretching in parallel 
lines out to the AvestAvard, in strata set upright on edge, or tilted to- 
Avard each other at strange angles by primeval earthquakes; — such is 
the “ Mouth ” — as those coves are called; and such the jaAV of teeth 
Avhich they display, one rasp of which Avould grind abroad the timbers 
of the stoutest ship. To landward, all richness, softness, and peace; 


124 


Westward Ho • 

to seaward, a waste and howling wilderness of rock and roller, barren 
to the fisherman, and hopeless to the shipwrecked mariner. 

In only one of these “ Mouths ” is a landing for boats, made pos- 
sible by a long sea-wall of rock, which protects it from the rollers of 
the Atlantic; and that Mouth is Marsland, the abode of the White 
Witch, Lucy Passmore; whither, as Sir Richard Grenvile rightly 
judged, the Jesuits were gone. But before the J esuits came, two other 
persons were standing on that lonely beach, under the bright October 
moon, namely, Rose Salterne and the White Witch herself ; for Rose, 
fevered with curiosity and superstition, and allured by the very wild- 
ness and possible danger of the spell, had kept her appointment ; and, 
a few minutes before midnight, stood on the gray shingle beach with 
her counsellor. 

“ You be safe enough here to-night, Miss. My old man is snoring 
sound abed, and there’s no other soul ever sets foot here o’ nights, 
except it be the mermaids now and then. Goodness Father, where’s 
our boat? It ought to be up here on the pebbles.” 

Rose pointed to a strip of sand some forty yards nearer the sea, 
where the boat lay. 

“ Oh, the lazy old villain! he’s been round the rocks after pollock 
this evening, and never taken the trouble to hale the boat up. I’ll 
trounce him for it when I get home. I only hope he’s made her fast 
where she is, that’s all ! He’s more plague to me than ever my money 
will be. O deary me! ” 

And the good wife bustled down toward the boat, with Rose be- 
hind her. 

“ Iss, ’tis fast, sure enough: and the oars aboard too! Well, I 
never! Oh, the lazy thief, to leave they here to be stole! I’ll just sit 
in the boat, dear, and watch mun, while you go down to the say; for 
you must be all alone to yourself you know, or you’ll see nothing. 
There’s the looking-glass ; now go, and dip your head three times, and 
mind you don’t look to land or sea before you’ve said the words, and 
looked upon the glass. Now, be quick, it’s just upon midnight.” 

And she coiled herself up in the boat, while Rose went faltering 
down the strip of sand, some twenty yards farther, and there slipping 
off her clothes, stood shivering and trembling for a moment before 
she entered the sea. 

She was between two walls of rock: that on her left hand, some 
twenty feet high, hid her in deepest shade; that on her right, though 
much lower, took the whole blaze of the midnight moon. Great fes- 























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The multitudinous life of the sea flashed into glory 







125 


The Coombes 

toons of live and purple seaweed hung from it, shading dark cracks 
and crevices, fit haunts for all the goblins of the sea. On her left 
hand, the peaks of the rock frowned down ghastly black; on her right 
hand, far aloft, the downs slept bright and cold. 

The breeze had died away; not even a roller broke the perfect still- 
ness of the cove. The gulls were all asleep upon the ledges. Over 
all was a true autumn silence; a silence which may be heard. She 
stood awed, and listened in hope of a sound which might tell her that 
any living thing beside herself existed. 

There was a faint bleat, as of a new-born lamb, high above her head; 
she started and looked up. Then a wail from the cliffs, as of a child 
in pain, answered by another from the opposite rocks. They were 
but the passing snipe, and the otter calling to her brood; but to her 
they were mysterious, supernatural goblins, come to answer to her 
call. Nevertheless, they only quickened her expectation; and the 
witch had told her not to fear them. If she performed the rite duly, 
nothing would harm her: but she could hear the beating of her own 
heart, as she stepped, mirror in hand, into the cold water, waded 
hastily, as far as she dare, and then stopped aghast. 

A ring of flame was round her waist ; every limb was bathed in lam- 
bent light ; all the multitudinous life of the autumn sea, stirred by her 
approach, had flashed suddenly into glory; 

“And around her the lamps of the sea nymphs, 

Myriad fiery globes, swam heaving and panting, and rainbows, 

Crimson and azure and emerald, were broken in star-showers, lighting 
Far through the wine-dark depths of the crystal, the gardens of Nereus, 
Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean. ’ 9 

She could see every shell which crawled on the white sand at her feet, 
every rock-fish which played in and out of the crannies, and stared at 
her with its broad bright eyes; while the great palmate oarweeds 
which waved along the chasm, half-seen in the glimmering water, 
seemed to beckon her down with long brown hands to a grave amid 
their chilly bowers. She turned to flee: but she had gone too far 
now to retreat ; hastily dipping her head three times, she hurried out 
to the sea-marge, and looking through her dripping locks at the magic 
mirror, pronounced the incantation — 

“A maiden pure, here I stand, 

Neither on sea nor yet on land ; 

Angels watch me on either hand. 


126 Westward H© ! 

If you be landsman, come down the strand ; 

If you be sailor, come up the sand ; 

If you be angel, come from the sky, 

Look in my glass, and pass me by. 

Look in my glass, and go from the shore ; 

Leave me, but love me for evermore. ’ ’ 

The incantation was hardly finished; her eyes were straining into 
the mirror, where, as may be supposed, nothing appeared but the 
sparkle of the drops from her own tresses, when she heard rattling 
down the pebbles the hasty feet of men and horses. 

She darted into a cavern of the high rock, and hastily dressed her- 
self : the steps held on right to the boat. Peeping out, half dead with 
terror, she saw there four men, two of whom had just leaped from 
their horses, and turning them adrift, began to help the other two in 
running the boat down. 

Whereon, out of the stern sheets, arose, like an angry ghost, the 
portly figure of Lucy Passmore, and shrieked in shrillest treble — 

“ Eh! ye villains, ye roogs, what do ye want staling poor folks’ boats 
by night like this? ” 

The whole party recoiled in terror, and one turned to run up the 
beach, shouting at the top of his voice, “ ’Tis a marmaiden — a mar- 
maiden asleep in Willy Passmore’s boat! ” 

“ I wish it were any sich good luck,” she could hear Will say; “ ’tis 
my wife, oh dear!” and he cowered down, expecting the hearty cuff 
which he received duly, as the White Witch, leaping out of the boat, 
dared any man to touch it, and thundered to her husband to go home 
to bed. 

The wily dame, as Rose well guessed, was keeping up this delay 
chiefly to gain time for her pupil: but she had also more solid reasons 
for making the fight as hard as possible; for she, as well as Rose, had 
already discerned in the ungainly figure of one of the party the same 
suspicious Welsh gentleman, on whose calling she had divined long 
ago; and she was so loyal a subject as to hold in extreme horror her 
husband’s meddling with such “ Popish skulkers ” (as she called the 
whole party roundly to their face) — unless on consideration of a very 
handsome sum of money. In vain Parsons thundered, Campian en- 
treated, Mr. Leigh’s groom swore, and her husband danced round in 
an agony of mingled fear and covetousness. 

“ No,” she cried, “ as I am an honest woman and loyal! This is 
why you left the boat down to the shoore, you old traitor, you, is it? 


The Coomhes 127 

To help off sich noxious trade as this out of the hands of her Majesty’s 
quorum and rotulorum? Eh? Stand back, cowards ! Will you strike 
a woman? ” 

This last speech (as usual) was merely indicative of her intention 
to strike the men; for, getting out one of the oars, she swung it round 
and round fiercely, and at last caught Father Parsons such a crack 
across the shins that he retreated with a howl. 

“ Lucy, Lucy!” shrieked her husband, in shrillest Devon falsetto, 
“ be you mazed? Be you mazed, lass? They promised me two gold 
nobles before I’d lend them the boot! ” 

“ Tu? ” shrieked the matron, with a tone of ineffable scom. “And 
do vu call yourself a man? ” 

“ Tu nobles! tu nobles! ” shrieked he again, hopping about at oar’s 
length. 

“ Tu? And would you sell your soul under ten? ” 

“ Oh, if that is it,” cried poor Campian, “ give her ten, give her ten, 
brother Pars — Morgans, I mean; and take care of your shins, 4 Offa 
Cerbero,’ you know — Oh, virago ! ‘ Furens quid foemina possit ; ’ 

Certainly she is some Lamia, some Gorgon, some ” * 

“ Take that, for your Lamys and Gorgons to an honest woman! ” 
and in a moment poor Campian’s thin legs were cut from under him, 
while the virago, “ mounting on his trunk astride,” like that more 
famous one on Hudibras, cried, “Ten nobles, or I’ll kep ye here till 
morning! ” And the ten nobles were paid into her hand. 

And now the boat, its dragon guardian being pacified, was run down 
to the sea, and close past the nook where poor little Rose was squeezing 
herself into the farthest and darkest corner, among wet seaweed and 
rough barnacles, holding her breath as they approached. 

They passed her, and the boat’s keel was already in the water ; Lucy 
had followed them close, for reasons of her own, and perceiving close 
to the water’s edge a dark cavern, cunningly surmised that it contained 
Rose, and planted her ample person right across its mouth, while she 
grumbled at her husband, the strangers, and above all at Mr. Leigh’s 
groom, to whom she prophesied pretty plainly Launceston jail and 
the gallows ; while the wretched serving-man, who would as soon have 
dared to leap off Welcombe Cliff, as to return railing for railing to 
the White Witch, in vain entreated her mercy, and tried, by all pos- 
sible dodging, to keep one of the party between himself and her, lest 
her redoubted eye should “ overlook ” him once more to his ruin. 

But the night’s adventures were not ended yet; for j.ust as the boat 


128 


Westward Ho ! 

was launched, a faint halloo was heard upon the beach, and a minute 
after, a horseman plunged down the pebbles, and along the sand, and 
pulling his horse up on its haunches close to the terrified group, 
dropped, rather than leaped, from the saddle. 

The serving-man, though he dared not tackle a witch, knew well 
enough how to deal with a swordsman; and drawing, sprang upon the 
newcomer: and then recoiled — 

“ God forgive me, it’s Mr. Eustace! Oh, dear sir, I took you for 
one of Sir Richard’s men! Oh, sir, you’re hurt! ” 

“A scratch, a scratch! ” almost moaned Eustace. “ Help me into 
the boat, Jack. Gentlemen, I must with you.” 

“Not with us, surely, my dear son, vagabonds upon the face of the 
earth? ” said kind-hearted Campian. 

“ With you, forever. All is over here. Whither God and the 
cause lead ” — and he staggered toward the boat. 

As he passed Rose, she saw his ghastly bleeding face, half bound 
up with a handkerchief, which could not conceal the convulsions of 
rage, shame, and despair, which twisted it from all its usual beauty. 
His eyes glared wildly round — and once, right into the cavern. They 
met hers, so full, and keen, and dreadful, that forgetting she was 
utterly invisible, the terrified girl was on the point of shrieking aloud. 

“He has overlooked me!” said she, shuddering to herself, as she 
recollected his threat of yesterday. 

“ Who has wounded you? ” asked Campian. 

“ My cousin — Amyas — and taken the letter! ” 

“ The devil take him, then! ” cried Parsons, stamping up and down 
upon the sand in fury. 

“Ay, curse him — you may! I dare not! He saved me — sent me 
here ! ” — and, with a groan, he made an effort to enter the boat. 

“ Oh, my dear young gentleman,” cried Lucy Passmore, her 
woman’s heart bursting out at sight of pain, “ you must not goo 
forth with a grane wound like to that. Do ye let me just bind mun 
up — do ye now ! ” and she advanced. 

Eustace thrust her back. 

“No! better bear it. I deserve it — devils! I deserve it! On 
board, or we shall all be lost — William Cary is close behind me! ” 

And at that news the boat was thrust into the sea, faster than ever 
it went before, and only in time; for it was but just round the rocks, 
and out of sight, when the rattle of Cary’s horse-hoofs was heard above. 

“ That rascal of Mr. Leigh’s will catch it now, the Popish villain! ” 


129 


The Co&mbes 

said Lucy Passmore aloud. “ You lie still there, dear life, and settle 
your sperrits; you’m so safe as ever was rabbit to burrow. I’ll see 
what happens, if I die for it! ” And so saying, she squeezed herself 
up through a cleft to a higher ledge, from whence she could see what 
passed in the valley. 

“ There mun is! in the meadow, trying to catch the horses! There 
comes Mr. Cary! Goodness Father, how a rid’th! he’s over wall 
already! Ron, Jack! ron then! A’ll get to the river! No, a waint! 
Goodness, Father! There’s Mr. Cary cotched mun! A’s down, a’s 
down ! ” 

“ Is he dead? ” asked Rose, shuddering. 

“ Iss, fegs, dead as nits! and Mr. Cary off his horse, standing over- 
thwart mun! No, a baint! A’s up now. Suspose he was hit wi’ 
the flat. Whatever is Mr. Cary tu? Telling wi’ mun, a bit. O dear, 
dear, dear! ” 

“ Has he killed him? ” cried poor Rose. 

“No, fegs, no! kecking mun, kecking mun, so hard as ever was 
futeball! Goodness, Father, who did ever? If a haven’t kecked mun 
right into river, and got on mun’s horse and rod away! ” 

And so saying, down she came again. 

“And now then, my dear life, us be better to goo hoom and get you 
sommat warm. You’m mortal cold, I rackon, by now. I was cruel 
fear’d for ye: but I kept mun off clever, didn’t I, now? ” 

“ I wish — I wish I had not seen Mr. Leigh’s face! ” 

“ Iss, dreadful, weren’t it, poor young soul; a sad night for his poor 
mother! ” 

“ Lucy, I can’t get his face out of my mind. I’m sure he over- 
looked me.” 

“ O then! who ever heard the like o’ that? When young gentlemen 
do overlook young ladies, ’tain’t thikketheor aways, I knoo. Never 
you think on it.” 

“ But I can’t help thinking of it,” said Rose. “ Stop. Shall we go 
home yet? Where’s that servant?” 

“Never mind, he waint see us, here under the hill. I’d much 
sooner to know where my old man was. I’ve a sort of a forecasting in 
my inwards, like, as I always has when aught’s gwain to happen, as 
though I shuldn’t zee mun again, like, I have, Miss. Well — he was a 
bedient old soul, after all, he was. Goodness, Father! and all this 
while us have forgot the very thing us come about! Who did you 
see? ” 


130 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Only that face! ” said Rose, shuddering. 

“ Not in the glass, maid? Say then, not in the glass? ” 

“ Would to heaven it had been! Lucy, what if he were the man 
I was fated to ” 

“ He? Why, he’s a praste, a Popish praste, that can’t marry if he 
would, poor wratch.” 

“ He is none; and I have cause enough to know it! ” And, for want 
of a better confidant, Rose poured into the willing ears of her com- 
panion the whole story of yesterday’s meeting. 

“ He’s a pretty wooer! ” said Lucy at last, contemptuously. “ Be 
a brave maid, then, be a brave maid, and never terrify yourself with 
his unlucky face. It’s because there was none here worthy of ye, that 
ye seed none in glass. Maybe he’s to be a foreigner, from over seas, 
and that’s why his sperit was so long a coming. A duke, or a prince 
to the least, I’ll warrant, he’ll be, that carries off the Rose of Bide- 
ford.” 

But in spite of all the good dame’s flattery, Rose could not wipe that 
fierce face away from her eyeballs. She reached home safely, and 
crept to bed undiscovered: and when the next morning, as was to be 
expected, found her laid up with something very like a fever, from 
excitement, terror, and cold, the phantom grew stronger and stronger 
before her, and it required all her woman’s tact and self-restraint to 
avoid betraying by her exclamations what had happened on that 
fantastic night. After a fortnight’s weakness, however, she recovered 
and went back to Bideford: but ere she arrived there, Amyas was far 
across the seas on his way to Milford Haven, as shall be told in the 
ensuing chapters. 















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NOV iO 1020 

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Sir Richard and Amyas in the garden 



CHAPTER VII. 

The true ana tragical histoiy of Mr. John 
Oxenham of P^moulh. 

"The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew; 

The furrow follow'd free; 

We were the first that ever burst 
Into that silent sea.” 

The Ancient Mariner. 

It was too late and too dark last night to see the old house at Stow. 
We will look round us, then, this bright October day, while Sir 
Richard and Amyas, about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, are pacing 
up and down the terraced garden to the south. Amyas has slept till 
luncheon, i. e. till an hour ago: but Sir Richard, in spite of the bustle 
of last night, was up and in the valley by six o’clock, recreating the 
valiant souls of himself and two terrier dogs by the chase of sundry 
badgers. 

Old Stow House stands, or rather stood, some four miles beyond 
the Cornish border, on the northern slope of the largest and loveliest 
of those coombes of which I spoke in the last chapter. Eighty years 
after Sir Richard’s time, there arose there a huge Palladian pile, 
bedizened with every monstrosity of bad taste, which was built, so 
the story runs, by Charles the Second, for Sir Richard’s great grand- 
son, the heir of that famous Sir Bevil who defeated the Parliamentary 
troops at Stratton, and died soon after, fighting valiantly at Lans- 
downe over Bath. But, like most other things which owed their ex- 
istence to the Stuarts, it rose only to fall again. An old man who 
had seen, as a boy, the foundation of the new house laid, lived to see 
it pulled down again, and the very bricks and timber sold upon the 
spot; and since then the stables have become a farmhouse, the tennis- 
court a sheep-cote, the great quadrangle a rick-yard ; and civilization, 
spreading wave on wave so fast elsewhere, has surged back from that 
lonely corner of the land — let us hope, only for a while. 

But I am not writing of that great new Stow House, of the past 


132 


Westward Ho ! 

glories whereof quaint pictures still hang in the neighboring houses; 
nor of that famed Sir Bevil, most beautiful and gallant of his genera- 
tion, on whom, with his grandfather Sir Richard, old Prince has his 
pompous epigram — 

“ Where next shall famous Grenvil’s ashes stand? 

Thy grandsire fills the sea, and thou the land.” 

I have to deal with a simpler age, and a sterner generation; and with 
the old house, which had stood there, in part at least, from gray and 
mythic ages, when the first Sir Richard, son of Hamon Dentatus, 
Lord of Carboyle, the grandson of Duke Robert, son of Rou, settled 
at Bideford, after slaying the Prince of South-Galis, and the Lord 
of Glamorgan, and gave to the Cistercian monks of Neath all his 
conquests in South Wales. It was a huge rambling building, half 
castle, half dwelling-house, such as may be seen still (almost an unique 
specimen) in Compton Castle near Torquay, the dwelling-place of 
Humphrey Gilbert, Walter Raleigh’s half-brother, and Richard 
Grenvile’s bosom friend, of whom more hereafter. On three sides, 
to the north, west, and south, the lofty walls of the old hallium still 
stood, with their machicolated turrets, loopholes, and dark downward 
crannies for dropping stones and fire on the besiegers, the relics of 
a more unsettled age: but the southern court of the ballium had 
become a flower-garden, with quaint terraces, statues, knots of flowers, 
clipped yews and hollies, and all the pedantries of the topiarian art. 
And toward the east, where the vista of the valley opened, the old 
walls were gone, and the frowning Norman keep, ruined in the wars 
of the Roses, had been replaced by the rich and stately architecture of 
the Tudors. Altogether, the house, like the time, was in a transi- 
tionary state, and represented faithfully enough the passage of the 
old middle age into the new life which had just burst into blossom 
throughout Europe, never, let us pray, to see its autumn or its winter. 

From the house on three sides, the hill sloped steeply down, and the 
garden where Sir Richard and Amy as were walking gave a truly 
English prospect. At one turn they could catch, over the western 
walls, a glimpse of the blue ocean flecked with passing sails; and at 
the next, spread far below them, range on range of fertile park, stately 
avenue, yellow autumn woodland, and purple heather moors, lapping 
over and over each other up the valley to the old British earthwork, 
which stood black and furze-grown on its conical peak; and standing 
out against the sky on the highest bank of hill which closed the valley 


Mr. <John Oxenh&m 133 

to the east, the lofty tower of Kilkhampton church, rich with the 
monuments and offerings of five centuries of Grenviles. A yellow 
eastern haze hung soft over park, and wood, and moor; the red cattle 
lowed to each other as they stood brushing away the flies in the rivulet 
far below; the colts in the horse-park close on their right whinnied as 
they played together, and their sires from the Queen’s park, on the 
opposite hill, answered them in fuller though fainter voices. A rut- 
ting stag made the still woodland rattle with his hoarse thunder, and a 
rival far up the valley gave back a trumpet note of defiance, and was 
himself defied from heathery brows which quivered far away above, 
half seen through the veil of eastern mist. And close at home, upon 
the terrace before the house, amid romping spaniels and golden-haired 
children, sat Lady Grenvile herself, the beautiful St. Leger of An- 
nery, the central jewel of all that glorious place, and looked down at 
her noble children, and then up at her more noble husband, and round 
at that broad paradise of the west, till life seemed too full of happiness, 
and heaven of light. 

And all the while up and down paced Amyas and Sir Richard, talk- 
ing long, earnestly, and slow; for they both knew that the turning 
point of the boy’s life was come. 

“ Yes,” said Sir Richard, after Amyas, in his blunt simple way, 
had told him the whole story about Rose Salterne and his brother, — 
“ yes, sweet lad, thou hast chosen the better part, thou and thy brother 
also, and it shall not be taken from you. Only be strong, lad, and 
trust in God that He will make a man of you.” 

“ I do trust,” said Amyas. 

“ Thank God,” said Sir Richard, 44 that you have yourself taken 
from my heart that which was my great anxiety for you, from the day 
that your good father, who sleeps in peace, committed you to my 
hands. For all best things, Amyas, become, when misused, the very 
worst; and the love of woman, because it is able to lift man’s soul to 
the heavens, is also able to drag him down to hell. But you have 
learned better, Amyas; and know, with our old German forefathers, 
that as Tacitus saith, 4 Sera juvenum Venus, ideoque inexhausta 
pubertas.’ And not only that, Amyas; but trust me, that silly fashion 
of the French and Italians, to be hanging ever at some woman’s apron 
string, so that no boy shall count himself a man unless he can 4 vag- 
ghezziare le donne,’ whether maids or wives, alas! matters little; that 
fashion, I say, is little less hurtful to the soul than open sin; for by it 
are bred vanity and expense, envy and heartburning, yea, hatred and 


134 


Westward Ho ! 

murder often; and even if that be escaped, yet the rich treasure of a 
manly worship, which should be kept for one alone, is squandered and 
parted upon many, and the bride at last comes in for nothing but the 
very last leavings and caput mortuum of her bridegroom’s heart, and 
becomes a mere ornament for his table, and a means whereby he may 
obtain a progeny. May God, who has saved me from that death in 
life, save you also!” And as he spoke, he looked down toward his 
wife upon the terrace below; and she, as if guessing instinctively that 
he was talking of her, looked up with so sweet a smile, that Sir Rich- 
ard’s stern face melted into a very glory of spiritual sunshine. 

Amyas looked at them both and sighed; and then turning the con- 
versation suddenly — 

“And I may go to Ireland to-morrow? ” 

“ You shall sail in the Mary for Milford Haven, with these letters 
to Winter. If the wind serves, you may bid the master drop down 
the river to-night, and be off ; for we must lose no time.” 

“ Winter? ” said Amyas. “ He is no friend of mine, since he left 
Drake and us so cowardly at the Straits of Magellan.” 

“ Duty must not wait for private quarrels, even though they be just 
ones, lad: but he will not be your general. When you come to the 
Marshal, or the Lord Deputy, give either of them this letter, and they 
will set you work, — and hard work too, I warrant.” 

“ I want nothing better.” 

“ Right, lad; the best reward for having wrought well already, is to 
have more to do; and he that has been faithful over a few things, must 
find his account in being made ruler over many things. That is the 
true and heroical rest, which only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of 
God. As for those who, either in this world or the world to come, 
look for idleness, and hope that God shall feed them with pleasant 
things, as it were with a spoon, Amyas, I count them cowards and 
base, even though they call themselves saints and elect.” 

“ I wish you could persuade my poor cousin of that.” 

“ He has yet to learn what losing his life to save it means, Amyas. 
Bad men have taught him (and I fear these Anabaptists and Puritans 
at home teach little else) , that it is the one great business of every one 
to save his own soul after he dies, every one for himself ; and that that, 
and not divine self-sacrifice, is the one thing needful, and the better 
part which Mary chose.” 

“ I think men are inclined enough already to be selfish, without 
being taught that.” 


Mr. «3Tohn Oxenham 135 

“ Right, lad. For me, if I could hang up such a teacher on high as 
an enemy of mankind, and a corrupter of youth, I would do it gladly. 
Is there not cowardice and self-seeking enough about the hearts of us 
fallen sons of Adam, that these false prophets, with their baits of 
heaven, and their terrors of hell, must exalt our dirtiest vices into 
heavenly virtues and the means of bliss? Farewell to chivalry and to 
desperate valor, farewell to patriotism and loyalty, farewell to Eng- 
land and to the manhood of England, if once it shall become the 
fashion of our preachers to bid every man, as the Jesuits do, take care 
first of what they call the safety of his soul. Every man will be afraid 
to die at his post, because he will be afraid that he is not fit to die. 
Amy as, do thou do thy duty like a man, to thy country, thy queen, 
and thy God; and count thy life a worthless thing, as did the holy 
men of old. Do thy work, lad; and leave thy soul to the care of Him 
who is just and merciful in this, that He rewards every man according 
to his work. Is there respect of persons with God? Now come in, 
and take the letters, and to horse. And if I hear of thee dead there 
at Smerwick fort, with all thy wounds in front, I shall weep for thy 
mother, lad: but I shall have never a sigh for thee.” 

If any one shall be startled at hearing a fine gentleman and a war- 
rior like Sir Richard quote Scripture, and think Scripture also, they 
must be referred to the writings of the time; which they may read not 
without profit to themselves, if they discover therefrom how it was 
possible then for men of the world to be thoroughly ingrained with the 
Gospel, and yet to be free from any taint of superstitious fear, or false 
devoutness. The religion of those days was such as no soldier need 
have been ashamed of confessing. At least, Sir Richard died as he 
lived, without a shudder, and without a whine; and these were his last 
words, fifteen years after that, as he lay shot through and through, a 
captive among Popish Spaniards, priests, crucifixes, confession, ex- 
treme unction, and all other means and appliances for delivering men 
out of the hands of a God of love: — 

“ Here die I, Richard Grenvile, with a joyful and quiet mind; for 
that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought, fighting for his coun- 
try, queen, religion, and honor: my soul willingly departing from this 
body, leaving behind the lasting fame of having behaved as every 
valiant soldier is in his duty bound to do.” 

Those were the last words of Richard Grenvile. The pulpits of 
those days had taught them to him. 

But to return. That day’s events were not over yet. For, when 


136 


Westward Ho ! 

they went down into the house, the first person whom they met was the 
old steward, in search of his master. 

“ There is a manner of roog, Sir Richard, a masterless man, at the 
door; a very forward fellow, and must needs speak with you.” 

“A masterless man? He had better not to speak to me, unless he 
is in love with jail and gallows.” 

“ Well, your worship,” said the steward, “ I expect that is what he 
does want, for he swears he will not leave the gate till he has seen you.” 

“ Seen me? Halidame! he shall see me, here and at Launceston 
too, if he likes. Bring him in.” 

“ Fegs, Sir Richard, we are half afeard, with your good leave ” 

“ Hillo, Tony,” cried Amyas, “ who was ever afeard yet with Sir 
Richard’s good leave? ” 

“ What, has the fellow a tail or horns? ” 

“Massy no: but I be afeard of treason for your honor; for the 
fellow is pinked all over in heathen patterns, and as brown as a filbert; 
and a tall roog, a very strong roog, sir, and a foreigner too, and a 
mighty staff with him. I expect him to be a manner of Jesuit, or 
wild Irish, sir ; and indeed the grooms have no stomach to handle him, 
nor the dogs neither, or he had been under the pump before now, for 
they that saw him coming up the hill swear that he had fire coming 
out of his mouth.” 

“ Fire out of his mouth? ” said Sir Richard. “ The men are 
drunk.” 

“Pinked all over? He must be a sailor,” said Amyas; “let me 
out and see the fellow, and if he needs putting forth ” 

“ Why, I dare say he is not so big but what he will go into thy 
pocket. So go, lad, while I finish my writing.” 

Amyas went out, and at the back door, leaning on his staff, stood a 
tall, raw-boned, ragged man, “ pinked all over,” as the steward had 
said. 

“ Hillo, lad! ” quoth Amyas. “ Before we come to talk, thou wilt 
please to lay down that Plymouth cloak of thine.” And he pointed 
to the cudgel, which among west-country mariners usually bore that 
name. 

“ I’ll warrant,” said the old steward, “ that where he found his cloak 
he found a purse not far off.” 

“ But not hose or doublet; so the magical virtue of his staff has not 
helped him much. But put down thy staff, man, and speak like a 
Christian, if thou be one.” 


Mr. John Oxenham i 37 

“ I am a Christian, though I look like a heathen; and no rogue, 
though a masterless man, alas ! But I want nothing, deserving noth- 
ing, and only ask to speak with Sir Richard, before I go on my way.” 

There was something stately and yet humble about the man’s tone 
and manner which attracted Amyas, and he asked more gently where 
he was going and whence he came. 

“ From Padstow Port, sir, to Clovelly town, to see my old mother, 
if indeed she be yet alive, which God knoweth.” 

“ Clovally man! why didn’t thee say thee was Clovally man? ” asked 
all the grooms at once, to whom a west countryman was of course a 
brother. The old steward asked, — 

“ What’s thy mother’s name, then? ” 

“ Susan Yeo.” 

“ What, that lived under the archway? ” asked a groom. 

“ Lived? ” said the man. 

“ Iss, sure; her died three days since, so we heard, poor soul.” 

The man stood quite silent and unmoved for a minute or two; and 
then said quietly to himself, in Spanish, “ That which is, is best.” 

“ You speak Spanish? ” asked Amyas more and more interested. 

“ I had need to do so, young sir; I have been five years in the 
Spanish Main, and only set foot on shore two days ago; and if you 
will let me have speech of Sir Richard, I will tell him that at which 
both the ears of him that heareth it shall tingle ; and if not, I can but 
go on to Mr. Cary of Clovelly, if he be yet alive, and there disburthen 
my soul ; but I would sooner have spoken with one that is a mariner 
like to myself.” 

“And you shall,” said Amyas. “ Steward, we will have this man 
in; for all his rags, he is a man of wit.” And he led him in. 

“ I only hope he ben’t one of those popish murderers,” said the old 
steward, keeping at a safe distance from him, as they entered the hall. 

“ Popish, old master? There’s little fear of my being that. Look 
here ! ” And drawing back his rags, he showed a ghastly scar, which 
encircled his wrist and wound round and up his forearm. 

“ I got that on the rack,” said he quietly, “ in the Inquisition at 
Lima.” 

“ O Father! Father! why didn’t you tell us that you were a poor 
Christian? ” asked the penitent steward. 

“ Because I have had nought but my deserts ; and but a taste of them 
either, as the Lord knoweth who delivered me; and I wasn’t going to 
make myself a beggar and a show on their account.” 


138 


Westward Ho ! 

“ By heaven, you are a brave fellow 1 ” said Amyas. “ Come along 
straight to Sir Richard’s room.” 

So in they went, where Sir Richard sat in his library among books, 
despatches, state-papers, and warrants; for though he was not yet, as 
in after times (after the fashion of those days), admiral, general, 
member of parliament, privy councillor, justice of the peace, and so 
forth, all at once, yet there were few great men with whom he did not 
correspond, or great matters with which he was not cognizant. 

“ Hillo, Amyas, have you bound the wild man already, and brought 
him in to swear allegiance? ” 

But before Amyas could answer, the man looked earnestly on him — 
“Amyas? ” said he; “ is that your name, sir? ” 

“Amyas Leigh is my name, at your service, good fellow.” 

“ Of Burrough by Bideford? ” 

“ Why then? What do you know of me? ” 

“ Oh sir, sir! young brains and happy ones have short memories; 
but old and sad brains too too long ones, often! Do you mind one 
that was with Mr. Oxenham, sir? a swearing reprobate he was, God 
forgive him, and hath forgiven him too, for His dear Son’s sake — one, 
sir, that gave you a horn, a toy with a chart on it? ” 

“ Soul alive! ” cried Amyas, catching him by the hand; “ and are 
you he? The horn? why, I have it still, and will keep it to my dying 
day too. But where is Mr. Oxenham? ” 

“ Yes, my good fellow, where is Mr. Oxenham? ” asked Sir Richard, 
rising. “ You are somewhat overhasty in welcoming your old ac- 
quaintance, Amyas, before we have heard from him whether he can 
give honest account of himself and of his Captain. For there is more 
than one way by which sailors may come home without their captains, 
as poor Mr. Barker of Bristol found to his cost. God grant that there 
may have been no such traitorous dealing here.” 

“ Sir Richard Grenvile, if I had been a guilty man to my noble 
captain, as I have to God, I had not come here this day to you, from 
whom villainy has never found favor, nor ever will ; for I know your 
conditions well, sir; and trust in the Lord, that if you will be pleased 
to hear me, you shall know mine.” 

“ Thou art a well-spoken knave. We shall see.” 

“ My dear sir,” said Amyas in a whisper, “ I will warrant this man 
guiltless.” 

“ I verily believe him to be; but this is too serious a matter to be left 
on guess. If he will be sworn ” 


139 


Mr. tJohn Oxenh&m 

Whereon the man, humbly enough, said, that if it would please Sir 
Richard, he would rather not be sworn. 

“ But it does not please me, rascal! Did I not warn thee, Amyas? ” 

“ Sir,” said the man proudly, “ God forbid that my word should not 
be as good as my oath: but it is against my conscience to be sworn.” 

“ What have we here? some fantastical Anabaptist, who is wiser 
than his teachers? ” 

“ My conscience, sir ” 

“ The devil take it and thee! I never heard a man yet begin to 
prate of his conscience, but I knew that he was about to do something 
more than ordinarily cruel or false.” 

“ Sir,” said the man, coolly enough, “ do you sit here to judge me 
according to law, and yet contrary to the law swear profane oaths, for 
which a fine is provided? ” 

Amyas expected an explosion: but Sir Richard pulled a shilling out 
and put it on the table. “ There — my fine is paid, sirrah, to the poor 
of Kilkhampton: but hearken thou all the same. If thou wilt not 
speak on oath, thou shalt speak on compulsion; for to Launceston jail 
thou goest, there to answer for Mr. Oxenham’s death, on suspicion 
whereof, and of mutiny causing it, I will attach thee and every soul of 
his crew that comes home. We have lost too many gallant captains of 
late by treachery of their crews, and he that will not clear himself on 
oath, must be held for guilty, and self -condemned.” 

“ My good fellow,” said Amyas, who could not give up his belief in 
the man’s honesty; “ why, for such fantastical scruples, peril not only 
your life, but your honor, and Mr. Oxenham’s also? For if you be 
examined by question, you may be forced by torment to say that which 
is not true.” 

“ Little fear of that, young sir!” answered he with a grim smile; 
“ I have had too much of the rack already, and the strappado too, to 
care much what man can do unto me. I would heartily that I thought 
it lawful to be sworn: but not so thinking, I can but submit to the 
cruelty of man; though I did expect more merciful things, as a most 
miserable and wrecked mariner, at the hands of one who hath himself 
seen God’s ways in the sea, and His wonders in the great deep. Sir 
Richard Grenvile, if you will hear my story, may God avenge on my 
head all my sins from my youth up until now, and cut me off from the 
blood of Christ, and, if it were possible, from the number of His elect, 
if I tell you one whit more or less than truth; and if not, I commend 
myself into the hands of God.” 


140 


Westward Ho ! 

Sir Richard smiled. “ Well, thou art a brave ass, and valiant, 
though an ass manifest. Dost thou not see, fellow, how thou hast 
sworn a ten-times bigger oath than ever I should have asked of thee? 
But this is the way with your Anabaptists, who by their very hatred of 
forms and ceremonies, show of how much account they think them, 
and then bind themselves out of their own fantastical self-will with far 
heavier burdens than ever the lawful authorities have laid on them for 
the sake of the commonweal. But what do they care for the common- 
weal, as long as they can save, as they fancy, each man his own dirty 
soul for himself? However, thou art sworn now with a vengeance; 
go on with thy tale: and first, who art thou, and whence? ” 

“ Well, sir,” said the man, quite unmoved by this last explosion; 
“ my name is Salvation Yeo, bom in Clovelly Street, in the year 1526, 
where my father exercised the mystery of a barber surgeon, and a 
preacher of the people since called Anabaptists, for which I return 
humble thanks to God.” 

Sir Richard . — Fie! thou naughty knave; return thanks that thy 
father was an ass? 

Yeo. — Nay, but because he was a barber surgeon; for I myself 
learned a touch of that trade, and thereby saved my life, as I will 
tell presently. And I do think that a good mariner ought to have 
all knowledge of carnal and worldly cunning, even to tailoring and 
shoemaking, that he may be able to turn his hand to whatsoever may 
hap. 

Sir Richard . — Well spoken, fellow: but let us have thy text without 
thy comments. Forwards! 

Yeo. — Well, sir. I was bred to the sea from my youth, and was 
with Cai)tain Hawkins in his three voyages, which he made to Guinea 
for negro slaves, and thence to the West Indies. 

Sir Richard . — Then thrice thou wentest to a bad end, though Cap- 
tain Hawkins be my good friend; and the last time to a bad end thou 
earnest. 

Yeo . — No denying that last, your worship: but as for the former, I 
doubt: — about the unlawfulness I mean; being the negroes are of the 
children of Ham, who are cursed and reprobate, as Scripture declares, 
and their blackness testifies, being Satan’s own livery; among whom 
therefore there can be none of the elect, wherefore the elect are not 
required to treat them as brethren. 

Sir Richard . — What a plague of a pragmatical sea-lawyer have we 
here? And I doubt not, thou hypocrite, that though thou wilt call 


141 


Mr* John OxeiVh&m 

the negroes’ black skin Satan’s livery, when it serves thy turn to steal 
them, thou wilt find out sables to be Heaven’s livery every Sunday, 
and up with a godly howl unless a parson shall preach in a black gown 
Geneva fashion. Out upon thee! Go on with thy tale, lest thou 
finish thy sermon at Launceston after all. 

Yeo . — The Lord’s people were always a reviled people and a perse- 
cuted people: but I will go forward, sir; for Heaven forbid but that 
I should declare what God has done for me. For till lately, from my 
youth up, I was given over to all wretchlessness and unclean living, 
and was by nature a child of the devil, and to every good work repro- 
bate, even as others. 

Sir Richard . — Hark to his “ even as others! ” Thou new-whelped 
Pharisee, canst not confess thine own villainies without making out 
others as bad as thyself, and so thyself no worse than others? I qnly 
hope that thou hast shown none of thy devil’s doings to Mr. Oxenham. 

Y eo . — On the word of a Christian man, sir, as I said before, I kept 
true faith with him, and would have been a better friend to him, sir, 
what is more, than ever he was to himself. 

Sir Richard. — Alas! that might easily be. 

Yeo . — I think, sir, and will make good against any man, that Mr. 
Oxenham was a noble and valiant gentleman; true of his word, stout 
of his sword, skilful by sea and land, and worthy to have been Lord 
High Admiral of England (saving your worship’s presence), but 
that through two great sins, wrath and avarice, he was cast away mis- 
erably or ever his soul was brought to the knowledge of the truth. 
Ah, sir, he was a Captain worth sailing under! And Yeo heaved a 
deep sigh. 

Sir Richard. — Steady, steady, good fellow! If thou wouldst quit 
preaching, thou art no fool after all. But tell us the story without 
more bush-beating. 

So at last Yeo settled himself to his tale: — 

“ Well, sirs, I went, as Mr. Leigh knows, to Nombre de Dios, with 
Mr. Drake and Mr. Oxenham, in 1572, where what we saw and did, 
your worship, I suppose, knows as well as I ; and there was, as you’ve 
heard may be, a covenant between Mr. Oxenham and Mr. Drake to 
sail the South Seas together, which they made, your worship, in my 
hearing, under the tree over Panama. For when Mr. Drake came 
down from the tree, after seeing the sea afar off, Mr. Oxenham and I 
went up and saw it too; and when we came down, Drake says, ‘ John, 
I have made a vow to God that I will sail that water, if I live and 


142 


Westward Ho ! 

God gives me grace ; ’ which he had done, sir, upon his bended knees, 
like a godly man as he always was, and would I had taken after him! 
and Mr. O. says, ‘ I am with you, Drake, to live or die, and I think 
I know some one there already, so we shall not be quite among 
strangers and laughed withal. Well, sirs, that voyage, as you know, 
never came off, because Captain Drake was fighting in Ireland; so 
Mr. Oxenham, who must be up and doing, sailed for himself, and I 
who loved him, God knows, like a brother (saving the difference in 
our ranks), helped him to get the crew together, and went as his 
gunner. That was in 1575; as you know, he had a 140-ton ship, sir, 
and seventy men out of Plymouth and Fowey and Dartmouth, and 
many of them old hands of Drake’s, beside a dozen or so from Bide- 
ford that I picked up when I saw young Master here.” 

“ Thank God that you did not pick me up too.” 

“Amen, amen!” said Yeo, clasping his hands on his breast. 
“ Those seventy men, sir, — seventy gallant men, sir, with every one of 
them an immortal soul within him, — where are they now? Gone, like 
the spray ! ” And he swept his hands abroad with a wild and solemn 
gesture. “And their blood is upon my head! ” 

Both Sir Richard and Amyas began to suspect that the man’s brain 
was not altogether sound. 

“ God forbid, my man,” said the Knight, kindly. 

“ Thirteen men I persuaded to join in Bideford town, beside Wil- 
liam Penberthy of Marazion, my good comrade. And what if it be 
said to me at the day of judgment, * Salvation Yeo, where are those 
fourteen whom thou didst tempt to their deaths by covetousness and 
lust of gold? ’ Not that I was alone in my sin, if the truth must be 
told. For all the way out Mr. Oxenham was making loud speech, 
after his pleasant way, that he would make all their fortunes, and take 
them to such a Paradise, that they should have no lust to come home 
again. And I — God knows why — for every one boast of his would 
make two, even to lying and empty fables, and anything to keep up 
the men’s hearts. For I had really persuaded myself that we should 
all find treasures beyond Solomon his temple, and Mr. Oxenham 
would surely show us how to conquer some golden city, or discover 
some island all made of precious stones. And one day, as the Captain 
and I were talking after our fashion, I said, ‘And you shall be our 
king, Captain.’ To which he, ‘ If I be, I shall not be long without a 
queen, and that no Indian one either.’ And after that he often jested 
about the Spanish ladies, saying that none could show us the wa\^ to 


143 


Mr. John Oxenham 

their hearts better than he. Which speeches I took no count of then, 
sirs: but after I minded them, whether I would or not. Well, sirs, we 
came to the shore of New Spain, near to the old place — that’s Nombre 
de Dios; and there Mr. Oxenham went ashore into the woods with a 
boat’s crew, to find the negroes who helped us three years before. 
Those are the Cimaroons, gentles, negro slaves who have fled from 
those devils incarnate, their Spanish masters, and live wild, like the 
beasts that perish; men of great stature, sirs, and fierce as wolves in the 
onslaught, but poor jabbering mazed fellows if they be but a bit dis- 
mayed; and have many Indian women with them, who take to these 
negroes a deal better than to their own kin, which breeds war enough, 
as you may guess. 

“ Well, sirs, after three days the Captain comes back, looking heavy 
enough, and says, 4 We played our trick once too often, when we 
played it once. There is no chance of stopping another re9o (that is, 
a mule-train, sirs) now. The Cimaroons say that since our last visit 
they never move without plenty of soldiers, two hundred shot at least. 
Therefore,’ he said , 4 my gallants, we must either return empty-handed 
from this, the very market and treasury of the whole Indies, or do 
such a deed as men never did before, which I shall like all the better for 
that very reason.’ And we, asking his meaning, 4 Why,’ he said, 4 if 
Drake will not sail the South Seas, we will; ’ adding profanely that 
Drake was like Moses, who beheld the promised land afar; but he was 
Joshua, who would enter into it, and smite the inhabitants thereof. 
And, for our confirmation, showed me and the rest the superscription 
of a letter: and said, 4 How I came by this is none of your business: 
but I have had it in my bosom ever since I left Plymouth; and I tell 
you now, what I forebore to tell you at first, that the South Seas have 
been my mark all along! such news have I herein of plate-ships, and 
gold-ships, and what not, which will come up from Quito and Lima 
this very month, all which, with the pearls of the Gulf of Panama, and 
other wealth unspeakable, will be ours, if we have but true English 
hearts within us.’ 

44 At which, gentles, we were like madmen for lust of that gold, and 
cheerfully undertook a toil incredible; for first we run our ship 
aground in a great wood which grew in the very sea itself, and then 
took out her masts, and covered her in boughs, with her four cast 
pieces of great ordnance (of which more hereafter), and leaving no 
man in her, started for the South Seas across the neck of Panama, 
with two small pieces of ordnance and our culverins, and good store 


144 


Westward Ho ! 

of victuals, and with us six of those negroes for a guide, and so twelve 
leagues to a river which runs into the South Sea. 

“And there, having cut wood, we made a pinnace (and work enough 
we had at it), of five-and-forty foot in the keel; and in her down the 
stream, and to the Isle of Pearls in the Gulf of Panama.” 

“Into the South Sea? Impossible!” said Sir Richard. “Have 
a care what you say, my man; for there is that about you which would 
make me sorry to find you out a liar.” 

“ Impossible or not, liar or none, we went there, sir.” 

“ Question him, Amyas, lest he turn out to have been beforehand 
with you.” 

The man looked inquiringly at Amyas, who said, — 

“ Well, my man, of the Gulf of Panama I cannot ask you, for I 
never was inside it, but what other parts of the coast do you 
know? ” 

“ Every inch, sir, from Cabo San Francisco to Lima; more is my 
sorrow, for I was a galley-slave there for two years and more.” 

“ You know Lima? ” 

“ I was there three times, worshipful gentlemen, and the last was 
February come two years; and there I helped lade a great plate-ship, 
the Cacafuogo , they called her.” 

Amyas started. Sir Richard nodded to him gently to be silent, and 
then — 

“And what became of her, my lad? ” 

“ God knows, who knows all, and the devil who freighted her. I 
broke prison six weeks afterward, and never heard but that she got 
safe into Panama.” 

“ You never heard, then, that she was taken? ” 

“ Taken, your worships? Who should take her? ” 

“ Why should not a good English ship take her as well as another? ” 
said Amyas. 

“ Lord love you, sir; yes faith, if they had but been there. Many’s 
the time that I thought to myself, as we went alongside, ‘ Oh, if Cap- 
tain Drake was but here, well to windward, and our old crew of the 
Dragon ! ’ Ask your pardon, gentles: but how is Captain Drake, if I 
may make so bold? ” 

Neither could hold out longer. 

“Fellow, fellow!” cried Sir Richard, springing up, “either thou 
art the cunningest liar that ever earned a halter, or thou hast done a 
deed the like of which never man adventured. Dost thou not know 


Mr* John Oxenham us 

that Captain Drake took that Caccifuogo and all her freight, in 
February come two years? ” 

Captain Drake ! God forgive me, sir ; but — Captain Drake in the 
South Seas? He saw them, sir, from the tree-top over Panama, 
when I was with him, and I too; but sailed them, sir? — sailed them? ” 
\ es, and round the world too,” said Amyas, “ and I with him; 
and took that very Cacafuogo off Cape San Francisco, as she came 
up to Panama.” 

One glance at the man’s face was enough to prove his sincerity. 
The great stern Anabaptist, who had not winced at the news of his 
mother s death, dropped right on his knees on the floor, and burst into 
violent sobs. 

“ Glory to God! Glory to God! O Lord, I thank thee! Captain 
Drake in the South Seas! The blood of thy innocents avenged, O 
Lord! The spoiler spoiled, and the proud robbed; and all they whose 
hands were mighty have found nothing. Glory, Glory! Oh, tell me, 
sir, did she fight? ” 

“We gave her three pieces of ordnance only, and struck down her 
mizzen mast, and then boarded sword in hand, but never had need to 
strike a blow; and before we left her, one of her own boys had changed 
her name, and rechristened her the Cacaplata ” 

“ Glory, glory ! Cowards they are, as I told them. I told them 
they never could stand the Devon mastiffs, and well they flogged me 
for saying it; but they could not stop my mouth. O sir, tell me, did 
vou get the ship that came up after her? ” 

“ What was that? ” 

“A long race-ship, sir, from Guayaquil, with an old gentleman on 
board, — Don Francisco de Xararte was his name, and by token, he 
had a gold falcon hanging to a chain round his neck, and a green stone 
in the breast of it. I saw it as we rowed him aboard. O tell me, sir, 
tell me for the love of God, did you take that ship? ” 

“ We did take that ship, and the jewel too, and her Majesty has it 
at this very hour.” 

“ Then tell me, sir,” said he slowly, as if he dreaded an answer; 
“ tell me, sir, and oh, try and mind — was there a little maid aboard 
with the old gentleman? ” 

“A little maid? Let me think. No; I saw none.” 

The man settled his features again sadly. 

“ I thought not. I never saw her come aboard. Still I hoped, like; 
I hoped. Alackaday ! God help me, Salvation Yeo! ” 


146 Westward Ho ! 

“ What have you to do with this little maid, then, good fellow? ” 
asked Grenvile. 

“Ah, sir, before I tell you that, I must go back and finish the story 
of Mr. Oxenham, if you will believe me enough to hear it.” 

“ I do believe thee, good fellow, and honor thee too.” 

“ Then, sir, I can speak with a free tongue. Where was I? ” 

“ Where was he, Amyas? ” 

“At the Isle of Pearls.” 

“And yet, O gentles, tell me first, how Captain Drake came into the 
South Seas: — over the neck, as we did? ” 

“ Through the Straits, good fellow, like any Spaniard: but go on 
with thy story, and thou shalt have Mr. Leigh’s after.” 

“Through the Straits! O glory! But I’ll tell my tale. Well, 
sirs both — To the Island of Pearls we came, we and some of the 
negroes. We found many huts, and Indians fishing for pearls, and 
also a fair house, with porches; but no Spaniard therein, save one man; 
at which Mr. Oxenham was like a man transported, and fell on that 
Spaniard, crying, ‘ Perro, where is your mistress? Where is the bark 
from Lima? ’ To which he boldly enough, 4 What was his mistress to 
the Englishman? ’ But Mr. O. threatened to twine a cord round his 
head till his eyes burst out; and the Spaniard, being terrified, said that 
the ship from Lima was expected in a fortnight’s time. So for ten 
days we lay quiet, letting neither negro nor Spaniard leave the island, 
and took good store of pearls, feeding sumptuously on wild cattle and 
hogs until the tenth day, when there came by a small bark ; her we took, 
and found her from Quito, and on board 60,000 pezos of gold and 
other store. With which if we had been content, gentlemen, all had 
gone well. And some were willing to go back at once, having both 
treasure and pearls in plenty; but Mr. O., he waxed right mad, and 
swore to slay any one who made that motion again, assuring us that 
the Lima ship of which he had news was far greater and richer, and 
would make princes of us all; which bark came in sight on the sixteenth 
day, and was taken without shot or slaughter. The taking of which 
bark, I verily believe, was the ruin of every mother’s son of us.” 

And being asked why, he answered, “ First, because of the discon- 
tent which was bred thereby ; for on board was found no gold, but only 
100,000 pezos of silver.” 

Sir Richard Grenvile. — Thou greedy fellow; and was not that 
enough to stay your stomachs? 

Yeo answered that he would to God it had been; but that, moreover, 


Mr. John Oxenh&m 147 

the weight of that silver was afterward a hindrance to them, and a 
fresh cause of discontent, as he would afterward declare. “So that it 
had been well for us, sirs, if we had left it behind, as Mr. Drake left 
his three years before, and carried away the gold only. In which I do 
see the evident hand of God, and His just punishment for our greedi- 
ness of gain; who caused Mr. Oxenham, by whom we had hoped to 
attain great wealth, to be a snare to us, and a cause of utter ruin.” 

“ Do you think, then,” said Sir Richard, “ that Mr. Oxenham de- 
ceived you wilfully? ” 

“ I will never believe that, sir: Mr. Oxenham had his private reasons 
for waiting for that ship, for the sake of one on board, whose face 
would that he had never seen, though he saw it then, as I fear, not for 
the first time by many a one.” And so was silent. 

“ Come,” said both his hearers, “ you have brought us thus far, and 
you must go on.” 

“ Gentlemen, I have concealed this matter from all men, both on my 
voyage home and since; and I hope you will be secret in the matter, 
for the honor of my noble Captain, and the comfort of his friends who 
are alive. For I think it shame to publish harm of a gallant gentle- 
man, and of an ancient and worshipful family, and to me a true and 
kind Captain, when what is done cannot be undone, and least said 
soonest mended. Neither now would I have spoken of it, but that I 
was inwardly moved to it for the sake of that young gentleman there 
(looking at Amyas), that he might be warned in time of God’s wrath 
against the crying sin of adultery, and flee youthful lusts, which war 
against the soul.” 

“ Thou hast done wisely enough, then,” said Sir Richard; “ and 
look to it if I do not reward thee: but the young gentleman here, 
thank God, needs no such warnings, having got them already both 
by precept and example, where thou and poor Oxenham might have 
had them also.” 

“ You mean Captain Drake, your worship? ” 

“ I do, sirrah. If all men were as clean livers as he, the world 
would be spared one-half the tears that are shed in it.” 

“Amen, sir. At least there would have been many a tear spared 
to us and ours. For — as all must out — in that bark of Lima he took 
a young lady, as fair as the sunshine, sir, and seemingly about two or 
three-and-twenty years of age, having with her a tall young lad of 
sixteen, and a little girl, a marvelously pretty child, of about a six or 
seven. And the lady herself was of an excellent beauty, like a whale’s 


148 


Westward H© I 

tooth for whiteness, so that all the crew wondered at her, and could 
not be satisfied with looking upon her. And, gentlemen, this was 
strange, that the lady seemed in no wise afraid or mournful, and bid 
her little girl fear nought, as did also Mr. Oxenham: but the lad kept 
a very sour countenance, and the more when he saw the lady and Mr. 
Oxenham speaking together apart. 

“ Well, sir, after this good luck we were minded to have gone 
straight back to the river whence we came, and so home to England 
with all speed. But Mr. Oxenham persuaded us to return to the 
island, and get a few more pearls. To which foolishness (which after 
caused the mishap) I verily believe he was moved by the instigation 
of the devil and of that lady. For as we were about to go ashore, I, 
going down into the cabin of the prize, saw Mr. Oxenham and that 
lady making great cheer of each other with, 4 My life,’ and 4 My king/ 
and 4 Light of my eyes,’ and such toys ; and being bidden by Mr. Oxen- 
ham to fetch out the lady’s mails, and take them ashore, heard how 
the two laughed together about the old ape of Panama (which ape, 
or devil rather, I saw afterward to my cost), and also how she said, 
that she had been dead for five years, and now that Mr. Oxenham was 
come, she was alive again, and so forth. 

44 Mr. Oxenham bade take the little maid ashore, kissing her and 
playing with her, and saying to the lady, 4 What is yours is mine, and 
what is mine is yours.’ And she asking whether the lad should come 
ashore, he answered, 4 He is neither yours nor mine ; let the spawn of 
Beelzebub stay on shore.’ After which I, coming on deck again, 
stumbled over that very lad, upon the hatchway ladder, who bore so 
black and despiteful a face that I verily believe he had overheard their 
speech, and so thrust him upon deck; and going below again, told Mr. 
Oxenham what I thought, and said that it were better to put a dagger 
into him at once, professing to be ready so to do. For which grievous 
sin, seeing that it was committed in my unregenerate days, I hope I 
have obtained the grace of forgiveness, as I have that of hearty re- 
pentance. But the lady cried out, 4 Though he be none of mine, I 
have sin enough already on my soul ; ’ and so laid her hand on Mr. 
Oxenham’s mouth, entreating pitifully. And Mr. Oxenham an- 
swered laughing, when she would let him, 4 What care we? let the 
young monkey go and howl to the old one ; 9 and so went ashore with 
the lady to that house, whence for three days he never came forth, and 
would have remained longer, but that the men, finding but few pearls, 
and being wearied with the watching and warding so many Spaniards, 


149 


Mr. John Oxen ham 

and negroes came clamoring to him, and swore that they would return 
or leave him there with the lady. So all Avent on board the pinnace 
again, every one in ill humor Avith the Captain, and he Avith them. 

“ Well, sirs, Ave came back to the mouth of the river, and there be- 
gan our troubles ; for the negroes, as soon as Ave Avere on shore, called 
on Mr. Oxenham to fulfil the bargain he had made Avith them. And 
now it came out (Avhat few of us knew till then) that he had agreed 
Avith the Cimaroons that they should have all the prisoners Avhich Avere 
taken, save the gold. And he, though loth, Avas about to give up the 
Spaniards to them, near forty in all, supposing that they intended to 
use them as shades: but as Ave all stood talking, one of the Spaniards, 
understanding Avhat Avas forAvard, threAV himself on his knees before 
Mr. Oxenham, and shrieking like a madman, entreated not to be given 
up into the hands of ‘ those devils,’ said he, ‘ Avho never take a Spanish 
prisoner, but they roast him alive, and then eat his heart among them.’ 
We asked the negroes if this AA r as possible? To Avhich some ansAvered, 
What Avas that to us? But others said boldly, that it Avas true enough, 
and that revenge made the best sauce, and nothing Avas so sAveet as 
Spanish blood; and one, pointing to the lady, said such foul and 
deAulish things as I should be ashamed either for me to speak, or you 
to hear. At this Ave Avere like men amazed for very horror; and Mr. 
Oxenham said, ‘ You incarnate fiends, if you had taken these felloAvs 
for slaves, it had been fair enough; for you Avere once slaves to them, 
and I doubt not cruelly used enough: but as for this abomination,’ 
says he, ‘ God do so to me, and more also, if I let one of them come 
into your murderous hands.’ So there AA^as a great quarrel; but Mr. 
Oxenham stoutly bade put the prisoners on board the ships again, and 
so let the prizes go, taking Avith him only the treasure, and the lady 
and the little maid. And so the lad went on to Panama, God’s wrath 
having gone out against us. 

“ Well, sirs, the Cimaroons after that Avent away from us, SAvearing 
revenge (for Avhich Ave cared little enough), and Ave roAved up the 
river to a place Avhere three streams met, and then up the least of the 
three, some four days’ journey, till it greAv all shoal and SAvift; and 
there we hauled the pinnace upon the sands, and Mr. Oxenham asked 
the men Avhether they Avere Avilling to carry the gold and silver over 
the mountains to the North Sea. Some of them at first were loth to 
do it, and I and others advised that Ave should leave the plate behind, 
and take the gold only, for it Avould have cost us three or four jour- 
neys at the least. But Mr. Oxenham promised every man 100 pezos 


150 


Westward. Ho * 

of silver over and above his wages, which made them content enough, 
and we were all to start the morrow morning. But, sirs, that night, 
as God had ordained, came a mishap by some rash speeches of Mr. 
Oxenham’s, which threw all abroad again; for when we had carried 
the treasure about half a league inland, and hidden it away in a house 
which we made of boughs, Mr. O. being always full of that his fair 
lady, spoke to me and William Penberthy of Marazion, my good com- 
rade, and a few more, saying, ‘ That we had no need to return to Eng- 
land, seeing that we were already in the very garden of Eden, and 
wanted for nothing, but could live without labor or toil; and that it 
was better, when we got over to the North Sea, to go and seek out some 
fair island, and there dwell in joy and pleasure till our lives’ end. 
And we two,’ he said, ‘ will be king and queen, and you, whom I can 
trust, my officers; and for servants we will have the Indians, who, I 
warrant, will be more fain to serve honest and merry masters like 
us than those Spanish devils,’ and much more of the like; which words 
I liked well, — my mind, alas ! being given altogether to carnal pleasure 
and vanity, — as did William Penberthy, my good comrade, on whom 
I trust God has had mercy. But the rest, sirs, took the matter all 
across, and began murmuring against the Captain, saying that poor 
honest mariners like them had always the labor and the pain, while he 
took his delight with his lady; and that they would have at least one 
merry night before they were slain by the Cimaroons, or eaten by 
panthers and lagartos; and so got out of the pinnace two great skins 
of Canary wine, which were taken in the Lima prize, and sat them- 
selves down to drink. Moreover, there were in the pinnace a great 
sight of hens, which came from the same prize, by which Mr. O. set 
great store, keeping them for the lady and the little maid; and falling 
upon these, the men began to blaspheme, saying, ‘ What a plague had 
the Captain to fill the boat with dirty live lumber for that giglet’s sake? 
They had a better right to a good supper than ever she had, and might 
fast a while to cool her hot blood ; 9 and so cooked and ate those hens, 
plucking them on board the pinnace, and letting the feathers fall into 
the stream. But when William Penberthy, my good comrade, saw 
the feathers floating away down, he asked them if they were mad, to 
lay a trail by which the Spaniards would surely track them out, if 
they came after them, as without doubt they would. But they laughed 
him to scorn, and said that no Spanish cur dared follow on the heels 
of true English mastiffs as they were, and other boastful speeches; 
and at last, being heated with wine, began afresh to murmur at the 


151 


Mr. John Oxenh&m 

Captain. And one speaking of his counsel about the island, the rest 
altogether took it amiss and out of the way ; and some sprang up cry- 
ing treason, and others that he meant to defraud them of the plate 
which he had promised, and others that he meant to desert them in a 
strange land, and so forth, till Mr. O., hearing the hubbub, came out 
to them from the house, when they reviled him foully, swearing that 
he meant to cheat them; and one Edward Stiles, a Wapping man, mad 
with drink, dared to say that he was a fool for not giving up the 
prisoners to the negroes, and what was it to him if the lady roasted? 
the negroes should have her yet; and drawing his sword, ran upon the 
Captain; for which I was about to strike him through the body; but 
the Captain, not caring to waste steel on such a ribald, with his fist 
caught him such a buffet behind the ear, that he fell down stark dead, 
and all the rest stood amazed. Then Mr. Oxenham called out, ‘All 
honest men who know me, and can trust me, stand by your lawful 
Captain against these ruffians.’ Whereon, sirs, I, and Penberthy my 
good comrade, and four Plymouth men, who had sailed with Mr. O. 
in Mr. Drake’s ship, and knew his trusty and valiant conditions, came 
over to him, and swore before God to stand by him and the lady. 
Then said Mr. O. to the rest, ‘ Will you carry this treasure, knaves, or 
will you not? Give me an answer here.’ And they refused, unless he 
would, before they started, give each man his share. So Mr. O. waxed 
very mad, and swore that he would never be served by men who did 
not trust him, and so went in again; and that night was spent in great 
disquiet, I and those five others keeping watch about the house of 
boughs till the rest fell asleep, in their drink. And next morning, 
when the wine was gone out of them, Mr. O. asked them whether they 
would go to the hills with him, and find those negroes, and persuade 
them after all to carry the treasure. To which they agreed after 
a while, thinking that so they should save themselves labor; and went 
off with Mr. Oxenham, leaving us six who had stood by him to watch 
the lady and the treasure, after he had taken an oath of us that we 
would "deal justly and obediently by him and by her, which God 
knows, gentlemen, we did. So he parted with much weeping and 
wailing of the lady, and was gone seven days; and all that time we 
kept that lady faithfully and honestly, bringing her the best we could 
find, and serving her upon our bended knees, both for her admirable 
beauty, and for her excellent conditions, for she was certainly of some 
noble kin, and courteous, and without fear, as if she had been a very 
princess. But she kept always within the house, which the little maid 


152 


Westward Ho \ 

(God bless her!) did not, but soon learned to play with us and we 
with her, so that we made great cheer of her, gentlemen, sailor 
fashion — for you know we must always have our minions aboard to 
pet and amuse us — maybe a monkey, or a little dog, or a singing bird, 
ay, or mice and spiders, if we have nothing better to play withal. 
And she was wonderful sharp, sirs, was the little maid, and picked up 
her English from us fast, calling us jolly mariners, which I doubt 
but she has forgotten by now, but I hope in God it be not so; ” and 
therewith the good fellow began wiping his eyes. 

“ Well, sir, on the seventh day we six were down by the pinnace 
clearing her out, and the little maid with us gathering of flowers, and 
William Penberthy fishing on the bank, about a hundred yards below, 
when on a sudden he leaps up and runs toward us, crying, ‘ Here come 
our hens’ feathers back again with a vengeance ! ’ and so bade catch up 
the little maid, and run for the house, for the Spaniards were upon us. 

“Which was too true; for before we could win the house, there 
were full eighty shot at our heels, but could not overtake us; never- 
theless, some of them stopping, fixed their calivers and let fly, killing 
one of the Plymouth men. The rest of us escaped to the house, and 
catching up the lady, fled forth, not knowing whither we went, while 
the Spaniards, finding the house and treasure, pursued us no farther. 

“ For all that day and the next we wandered in great misery, the 
lady weeping continually, and calling for Mr. Oxenham most pite- 
ously, and the little maid likewise, till with much ado we found the 
track of our comrades, and went up that as best we might: but at 
nightfall, by good hap, we met the whole crew coming back, and with 
them two hundred negroes or more, with bows and arrows. At which 
sight was great joy and embracing, and it was a strange thing, sirs, 
to see the lady; for before that she was altogether desperate: and yet 
she was now a very lioness, as soon as she had got her love again ; and 
prayed him earnestly not to care for that gold, but to go forward to the 
North Sea, vowing to him in my hearing that she cared no more for 
poverty than she had cared for her good name, and then — they being 
a little apart from the rest — pointed round to the green forest, and 
said in Spanish — which I suppose they knew not that I understood, — 

‘ See, all round us is Paradise. Were it not enough for you and me 
to stay here for ever, and let them take the gold or leave it as they 
will? ’ 

“ To which Mr. Oxenham — c Those who lived in Paradise had not 
sinned as we have, and would never have grown old or sick, as we shall.’ 


153 


Mr. «Tolm Oxenham 

“And she — ‘ If we do that, there are poisons enough in these woods, 
by whieh we may die in each other’s arms, as would to Heaven we 
had died seven years agone ! ’ • 

“ But he — ‘ No, no, my life. It stands upon my honor both to 
fulfil my bond with these men, whom I have brought hither, and to 
take home to England at least something of my prize as a proof of my 
own valor.’ 

“ Then she smiling — ‘Am I not prize enough, and proof enough? ’ 
But he would not be so tempted, and turning to us offered us the half 
of that treasure, if we would go back with him, and rescue it from the 
Spaniard. At which the lady wept and Availed much ; but I took upon 
myself to comfort her, though I was but a simple mariner, telling her 
that it stood upon Mr. Oxenham’s honor; and that in England nothing 
Avas esteemed so foul as coAvardice, or breaking word and troth betAvixt 
man and man; and that better Avas it for him to die seven times by the 
Spaniards, than to face at home the scorn of all Avho sailed the seas. 
So, after much ado, back they went again; I and Penberthy, and the 
three Plymouth men Avhich escaped from the pinnace, keeping the lady 
as before. 

“ Well, sirs, Ave Avaited five days, having made houses of boughs as 
before, Avithout hearing aught; and on the sixth Ave saAv coming afar 
off Mr. Oxenham, and with him fifteen or tAventy men, who seemed 
very Aveary and Avounded; and when Ave looked for the rest to be be- 
hind them, behold there Avere no more; at Avhich, sirs, as you may Avell 
think, our hearts sank Avithin us. 

“And Mr. O., coming nearer, cried out afar off, ‘All is lost! ’ and so 
Avalked into the camp Avithout a word, and sat himself doAAm at the 
foot of a great tree Avith his head between his hands, speaking neither 
to the lady or to any one, till she very pitifully kneeling before him, 
cursing herself for the cause of all his mischief, and praying him to 
avenge himself upon that her tender body, won him hardly to look 
once upon her, after Avhich (as is the Avay of vain and unstable man) 
all betAveen them Avas as before. 

“ But the men Avere full of curses against the negroes, for their 
coAvardice and treachery; yea, and against high Heaven itself, Avhich 
had put the most part of their ammunition into the Spaniards’ hands ; 
and told me, and I believe truly, hoAV they forced the enemy aAA^aiting 
them in a little copse of great trees, Avell fortified Avith barricades of 
boughs, and having with them our two falcons, Avhich they had taken 
out of the pinnace. And how Mr. Oxenham divided both the English 


154 


Westward Ho ! 

and the negroes into two bands, that one might attack the enemy in 
front, and the other in the rear, and so set upon them with great fury, 
and would have utterly driven them out, but that the negroes, who had 
come on with much howling, like very wild beasts, being suddenly 
scared with the shot and noise of the ordnance, turned and fled, leaving 
the Englishmen alone; in which evil strait Mr. O. fought like a very 
Guy of Warwick, and I verily believe every man of them likewise; 
for there was none of them who had not his shrewd scratch to show. 
And indeed, Mr. Oxenham’s party had once gotten within the barri- 
cades, but the Spaniards being sheltered by the tree trunks (and espe- 
cially by one mighty tree, which stood as I remembered it, and re- 
member it now, borne up two fathoms high upon its own roots, as it 
were upon arches and pillars), shot at them with such advantage, that 
they had several slain, and seven more taken alive, only among the 
roots of that tree. So seeing that they could prevail nothing, having 
little but their pikes and swords, they were fain to give back ; though 
Mr. Oxenham swore he would not stir a foot, and making at the 
Spanish Captain was borne down with pikes, and hardly pulled away 
by some, who at last reminding him of his lady, persuaded him to 
come away with the rest. Whereon the other party fled also; but 
what had become of them they knew not, for they took another way. 
And so they miserably drew off, having lost in men eleven killed and 
seven taken alive, besides five of the rascal negroes who were killed 
before they had time to run; and there was an end of the matter . 1 


1 In the documents from which I have drawn this veracious history, a note is appended 
to this point of Yeo’s story, which seems to me to smack sufficiently of the old 
Elizabethan seaman, to be inserted at length. 

“All so far, and most after, agreeth with Lopez Vaz his tale, taken from his pocket by 
my Lord Cumberland’s mariners at the river Plate, in the year 1586. But note here his 
vainglory and falsehood, or else fear of the Spaniard. 

“ First, lest it should be seen how great an advantage the Spaniards had, he maketh no 
mention of the English calivers, nor those two pieces of ordnance which were in the 
pinnace. 

“Second, he saith nothing of the flight of the Cimaroons: though it was evidently to 
be gathered from that which he himself saith, that of less than seventy English were 
slain eleven, and of the negroes but five. And while of the English seven were taken 
alive, yet of the negroes none. And why, but because the rascals ran? 

“Thirdly, it is a thing incredible, and out of experience, that eleven English should be 
slain and seven taken, with loss only of two Spaniards killed. 

“ Search now, and see (for I will not speak of mine own small doings), in all those 
memorable voyages, which the worthy and learned Mr. Hakluyt hath so painfully col- 
lected, and which are to my old age next only to my Bible, whether in all the fights 
which we have endured with the Spaniards, their loss, even in victory, hath not far 
exceeded ours. For we are both bfgger of body and fiercer of spirit, being even to the 
poorest of us (thanks to the care of our illustrious princes) the best fed men of Europe, 
the most trained to feats of strength and use of weapons, and put our trust also not 
in any Virgin or saints, dead rags and bones, painted idols which have no breath in 
their mouths, or St. Bartholomew medals, and such devil’s remembrancers: but in the 


Mr. tTohn Oxenli&m i 55 

But the next day, gentlemen, in came some five-and-twenty more, 
being the wreck of the other party, and with them a few negroes; and 
these last proved themselves no honester men than they were brave, 
for there being great misery among us English, and every one of us 
straggling where he could to get food, every day one or more who went 
out never came back, and that caused a suspicion that the negroes had 
betrayed them to the Spaniards, or may be, slain and eaten them. 
So these fellows being upbraided with that altogether left us, telling 
us boldly, that if they had eaten our fellows, we owed them a debt 
instead of the Spanish prisoners ; and we, in great terror and hunger, 
went forward and over the mountains till we came to a little river 
which ran northward, which seemed to lead into the Northern Sea; and 
there Mr. O. — who, sirs, I will say, after his first rage was over, be- 
haved himself all through like a valiant and skilful commander — bade 
us cut down trees and make canoes, to go down to the sea; which we 
began to do with great labor and little profit, hewing down trees with 
our swords, and burning them out with fire, which, after much labor, 
we kindled ; but as we were a-burning out of the first tree, and cutting 
down of another, a great party of negroes came upon us, and with 
much friendly show bade us flee for our lives, for the Spaniards were 
upon us in great force. And so we were up and away again, hardly 
able to drag our legs after us for hunger and weariness, and the broil- 
ing heat. And some were taken (God help them!) and some fled 
with the negroes, of whom what became God alone knoweth ; but eight 
or ten held on with the Captain, among whom was I, and fled down- 
ward toward the sea for one day; but afterward finding, by the noise 
in the woods, that the Spaniards were on the track of us, we turned 
up again toward the inland, and coming to a cliff, climbed up over 
it, drawing up the lady and the little maid with cords of liana (which 

only true God and our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom whosoever trusteth, one of them 
shall chase a thousand. So I hold, having had good experience; and say, if they have 
done it once, let them do it again, and kill their eleven to our two, with any weapon 
they will, save paper bullets blown out of Fame’s lying trumpet. Yet I have no quarrel 
with the poor Portugal; for I doubt not but friend Lopez Vaz had looking over his 
shoulder as he wrote some mighty black velvet Don, with a name as long as that Don 
Bernaldino Delgadillo de Avellaneda who set forth lately his vainglorious libel of lies 
concerning the last and fatal voyage of my dear friends Sir F. Drake and Sir John 
Hawkins, who rest in peace, having finished their labors, as would God I rested. To 
whose shameless and unspeakable lying my good friend Mr. Henry Savile of this county 
did most pithily and wittily reply, stripping the ass. out of his lion’s skin; and Sir 
Thomas Baskerville, general of the fleet, by my advice, send him a cartel of defiance, 
offering to meet him with choice of weapons, in any indifferent kingdom of equal 
distance from this realm; which challenge he hath prudently put in his pipe, or rather 
rolled it up for one of his Spanish cigarros, and smoked it, and I doubt not, found it 
foul in the mouth.” 


156 


Westward Ho ! 

hang from those trees as honeysuckle does here, but exceeding stout 
and long, even to fifty fathoms) ; and so breaking the track, hoped 
to be out of the way of the enemy. 

“ By which, nevertheless, we only increased our misery. For two 
fell from that cliff, as men asleep for very weariness, and miserably 
broke their bones ; and others, whether by the great toil, or sunstrokes, 
or eating of strange berries, fell sick of fluxes and fevers; where w r as 
no drop of water, but rock of pumice stone as bare as the back of my 
hand, and full, moreover, of great cracks, black and without bottom, 
over which we had not strength to lift the sick, but were fain to leave 
them there aloft, in the sunshine, like Dives in his torments, crying 
aloud for a drop of water to cool their tongues ; and every man a great 
stinking vulture or two sitting by him, like an ugly black fiend out of 
the pit, waiting till the poor soul should depart out of the corpse; but 
nothing could avail, and for the dear life we must down again and 
into the woods, or be burned up alive upon those rocks. 

“ So getting down the slope on the farther side, we came into the 
woods once more, and there wandered for many days, I know not how 
many ; our shoes being gone, and our clothes all rent off us with brakes 
and briars. And yet how the lady endured all was a marvel to see; 
for she went barefoot many days, and for clothes was fain to wrap 
herself in Mr. Oxenham’s cloak; while the little maid went all but 
naked : but ever she looked still on Mr. Oxenham, and seemed to take 
no care as long as he was by, comforting and cheering us all with 
pleasant words; yea, and once sitting down under a great fig-tree, 
sang us all to sleep with very sweet music ; yet, waking about midnight, 
I saw her sitting still upright, weeping very bitterly; on whom, sirs, 
God have mercy; for she was a fair and a brave jewel. 

“And so, to make few words of a sad matter, at last there were none 
left but Mr. Oxenham and the lady and the little maid, together with 
me and William Penberthy of Marazion, my good comrade. And 
Mr. Oxenham always led the lady, and Penberthy and I carried the 
little maid. And for food we had fruits, such as we could find, and 
water we got from the leaves of certain lilies which grew on the bark 
of trees, which I found by seeing the monkeys drink at them; and the 
little maid called them monkey-cups, and asked for them continually, 
making me climb for them. And so we wandered on, and upward 
into very high mountains, always fearing lest the Spaniards should 
track us with dogs, which made the lady leap up often in her sleep, 
crying that the bloodhounds were upon her. And it befell upon a 


Mr* <JoTm OxenTiam 157 

day, that we came into a great wood of ferns (which grew not on the 
ground like ours, but on stems as big as a pinnace’s mast, and the bark 
of them was like a fine meshed net, very strange to see) .where was very 
pleasant shade, cool and green; and there, gentlemen, we sat down 
on a bank of moss, like folk desperate and foredone, and every one 
looked the other in the face for a long while. After which I took off 
the bark of those ferns, for I must needs be doing something to drive 
away thought, and began to plait slippers for the little maid. 

“And as I was plaiting, Mr. Oxenham said, ‘ What hinders us from 
dying like men, every man falling on his own sword? ’ To which I 
answered that I dare not; for a wise woman had prophesied of me, 
sirs, that I should die at sea, and yet neither by water or battle, where- 
fore I did not think right to meddle with the Lord’s purposes. And 
William Penberthy said, ‘ That he would sell his life, and that dear, 
but never give it away.’ But the lady said, ‘Ah, how gladly would I 
die! but then la paouvre garse,’ which is in French ‘ the poor maid,’ 
meaning the little one. Then Mr. Oxenham fell into a very great 
weeping, a weakness I never saw him in before or since; and with many 
tears besought me never to desert that little maid, whatever might 
befall; which I promised, swearing to it like a heathen, but would, if I 
had been able, have kept it like a Christian. But on a sudden there 
was a great cry in the wood, and coming through the trees on all sides 
Spanish arquebusiers, a hundred strong at least, and negroes with 
them, who bade us stand or they would shoot. William Penbertl^ 
leaped up, crying, ‘ Treason ! 9 and running upon the nearest negro 
ran him through, and then another, and then falling on the Spaniards, 
fought manfully till he was borne down with pikes, and so died. But 
I, seeing nothing better to do, sate still and finished my plaiting. And 
so we were all taken, and I and Mr. Oxenham bound with cords ; but 
the soldiers made a litter for the lady and child, by commandment of 
Senor Diego de Trees, their commander, a very courteous gentle- 
man. 

“ Well, sirs, we were brought down to the place where the house 
of boughs had been by the riverside; there we went over in boats, and 
found waiting for us certain Spanish gentlemen, and among others 
one old and ill-favored man, gray-bearded and bent, in a suit of black 
velvet, who seemed to be a great man among them. And if you will 
believe me, Mr. Leigh, that was none other than the old man with the 
gold falcon at his breast, Don Francisco Xararte by name, whom you 
found aboard of the Lima ship. And had you known as much of 


158 


Westward Ho ! 

him as I do, or as Mr. Oxenham did either, you had cut him up for 
shark’s bait, or ever you let the cur ashore again. 

“ Well, sirs, as soon as the lady came to shore, that old man ran 
upon her sword in hand, and would have slain her, but some there 
held him back. On which he turned to, and reviled with every foul 
and spiteful word which he could think of, so that some there bade him 
be silent for shame; and Mr. Oxenham said, ‘ It is worthy of you, Don 
Francisco, thus to trumpet abroad your own disgrace. Did I not tell 
you years ago that you were a cur; and are you not proving my words 
for me ? 9 

“ He answered, ‘ English dog, would to Heaven I had never seen 
you! ’ 

“And Mr. Oxenham, ‘ Spanish ape, would to Heaven that I had 
sent my dagger through your herring-ribs when you passed me behind 
St. Ildegonde’s church, eight years last Easter eve.’ At which the old 
man turned pale, and then began again to upbraid the lady, vowing 
that he would have her burnt alive, and other devilish words, to which 
she answered at last — 

“ ‘ Would that you had burnt me alive on my wedding morning, 
and spared me eight years of misery ! ’ And he — 

“‘Misery? Hear the witch, Senors! Oh, have I not pampered 
her, heaped with jewels, clothes, coaches, what not? The saints alone 
know what I have spent on her. What more would she have of me? ’ 

“ To which she answered only but this one word, ‘ Fool! ’ but in so 
terrible a voice, though low, that they who were about to laugh at the 
old pantaloon, were more minded to weep for her. 

“ ‘ Fool! ’ she said again, after a while, ‘ I will waste no words upon 
you. I would have driven a dagger to your heart months ago, but 
that I was loth to set you free so soon from your gout and your 
rheumatism. Selfish and stupid, know when you bought my body 
from my parents, you did not buy my soul ! Farewell, my love, my 
life ! and farewell, Senors ! May you be more merciful to your daugh- 
ters than my parents were to me!’ And so, catching a dagger from 
the girdle of one of the soldiers, smote herself to the heart, and fell 
dead before them all. 

“At which Mr. Oxenham smiled, and said, ‘ That was worthy of us 
both. If you will unbind my hands, Senors, I shall be most happy 
to copy so fair a schoolmistress.’ 

“ But Don Diego shook his head, and said, 

“ ‘ It were well for you, valiant Senor, were I at liberty to do so; 


159 


Mr* tTohn Oxenham 

but on questioning those of your sailors, whom I have already taken, 
I cannot hear that you have any letters of license, either from the 
Queen of England, or any other potentate. I am compelled, there- 
fore, to ask you, whether this is so; for it is a matter of life and death/ 
“ To which Mr. Oxenham answered merrily, ‘ That so it was: but 
that he was not aware that any potentate’s license was required to per- 
mit a gentleman’s meeting his lady love; and that as for the gold 
which they had taken, if they had never allowed that fresh and fair 
young May to be forced into marrying that old January, he should 
never have meddled with their gold; so that was rather their fault than 
his.’ And added, that if he was to be hanged, as he supposed, the 
only favor which he asked for was a long drop and no priests. And 
all the while, gentlemen, he still kept his eyes fixed on the lady’s corpse, 
till he was led away with me, while all that stood by, God reward them 
for it, lamented openly the tragical end of those two sinful lovers. 

“And now, sirs, what befell me after that matters little; for I never 
saw Captain Oxenham again, nor ever shall in this life.” 

“ He was hanged, then? ” 

“ So I heard for certain the next year, and with him the gunner and 
sundry more: but some were given away for slaves to the Spaniards, 
and may be alive now, unless, like me, they have fallen into the cruel 
clutches of the Inquisition. For the Inquisition now, gentlemen, 
claims the bodies and souls of all heretics all over the world (as the 
devils told me with their own lips, when I pleaded that I was no 
Spanish subject) ; and none that it catches, whether peaceable mer- 
chants, or shipwrecked mariners, but must turn or burn.” 

“ But how did you get into the Inquisition? ” 

“ Why, sir, after we were taken, we set forth to go down the river 
again; and the old Don took the little maid with him in one boat 
(and bitterly she screeched at parting from us, and from the poor 
dead corpse) , and Mr. Oxenham with Don Diego de Trees in another, 
and I in a third. And from the Spaniards I learned that we were to 
be taken down to Lima, to the Viceroy: but that the old man lived 
hard by Panama, and was going straight back to Panama forthwith 
with the little maid. But they said, 4 It will be well for her if she 
ever gets there, for the old man swears she is none of his, and would 
have left her behind him in the woods, now, if Don Diego had not 
shamed him out of it.’ And when I heard that, seeing that there was 
nothing but death before me, I made up my mind to escape; and the 
very first night, sirs, by God’s help, I did it, and went southward away 


160 


Westward Ho I 

into the forest, avoiding the tracks of the Cimaroons, till I came to an 
Indian town. And there, gentlemen, I got more mercy from heathens 
than ever I had from Christians; for when they found that I was no 
Spaniard, they fed me and gave me a house, and a wife (and a good 
wife she was to me), and painted me all over in patterns, as you see; 
and because I had some knowledge of surgery and blood-letting, and 
my fleams in my pocket, which were worth to me a fortune, I rose to 
great honor among them, though they taught me more of simples than 
ever I taught them of surgery. So I lived with them merrily enough, 
being a very heathen like them, or indeed worse, for they worshiped 
their Xemes, but I nothing. And in time my wife bare me a child; 
in looking at whose sweet face, gentlemen, I forgot Mr. Oxenham and 
his little maid, and my oath, ay, and my native land also. Wherefore 
it was taken from me, else had I lived and died as the beasts which 
perish; for one night, after we were all lain down, came a noise out- 
side the town, and I starting up saw armed men and calivers shining 
in the moonlight, and heard one read in Spanish, with a loud voice, 
some fool’s sermon, after their custom when they hunt the poor 
Indians, how God had given to St. Peter the dominion of the whole 
earth, and St. Peter again the Indies to the Catholic king; wherefore, 
if they would all be baptized and serve the Spaniard, they should have 
some monkey’s allowance or other of more kicks than pence; and if 
not, then have at them with fire and sword ; but I dare say your wor- 
ships know that devilish trick of theirs better than I.” 

“ I know it, man. Go on.” 

“ Well — no sooner were the words spoken, than, without waiting to 
hear what the poor innocents within would answer (though that 
mattered little, for they understood not one word of it), what do the 
villains but let fly right into the town with their calivers, and then rush 
in, sword in hand, killing pell-mell all they met, one of which shots, 
gentlemen, passing through the doorway, and close by me, struck my 
poor wife to the heart, that she never spoke word more. I, catching 
up the babe from her breast, tried to run: but when I saw the town 
full of them, and their dogs with them in leashes, which was yet worse, 
I knew all was lost, and sat down again by the corpse with the babe 
on my knees, waiting the end, like one stunned and in a dream; for 
now I thought God from whom I had fled had surely found me out, 
as He did Jonah, and the punishment of all my sins was come. Well, 
gentlemen, they dragged me out, and all the young men and women, 
and chained us together by the neck; and one, catching the pretty babe 


161 


Mr* John Oxenh&m 

out of my arms, calls for water and a priest (for they had their 
shavelings with them), and no sooner was it christened, than, catch- 
ing the babe by the heels, he dashed out its brains, — oh! gentlemen, 
gentlemen! — against the ground, as if it had been a kitten; and so 
did they to several more innocents that night, after they had christened 
them ; saying it was best for them to go to heaven while they were still 
sure thereof; and so marched us all for slaves, leaving the old folk and 
the wounded to die at leisure. But when morning came, and they 
knew by my skin that I was no Indian, and by my speech that I was 
no Spaniard, they began threatening me with torments, till I con- 
fessed that I was an Englishman, and one of Oxenham’s crew. At 
that says the leader, ‘ Then you shall to Lima, to hang by the side of 
your Captain the pirate ; by which I first knew that my poor Captain 
was certainly gone ; but alas for me ! the priest steps in and claims me 
for his booty, calling me Lutheran, heretic, and enemy of God; and 
so, to make short a sad story, to the Inquisition at Carthagena I went, 
where what I suffered, gentlemen, were as disgustful for you to hear, 
as unmanly for me to complain of; but so it was, that being twice 
racked, and having endured the water-torment as best I could, I was 
put to the scarpines, whereof I am, as you see, somewhat lame of one 
leg to this day. At which I could abide no more, and so, wretch that 
I am! denied my God, in hope to save my life; which indeed I did, 
but little it profited me; for though I had turned to their superstition, 
I must have two hundred stripes in the public place, and then go to 
the galleys for seven years. And there, gentlemen, ofttimes I thought 
that it had been better for me to have been burned at once and for 
all: but you know as well as I what a floating hell of heat and cold, 
hunger and thirst, stripes and toil, is every one of those accursed craft. 
In which hell, nevertheless, gentlemen, I found the road to heaven, — 
I had almost said heaven itself. For it fell out, by God’s mercy, that 
my next comrade was an Englishman like myself, a young man of 
Bristol, who, as he told me, had been some manner of factor on board 
poor Captain Barker’s ship, and had been a preacher among the 
Anabaptists here in England. And, oh! Sir Richard Grenvile, if that 
man had done for you what he did for me, you would never say a word 
against those who serve the same Lord, because they don’t altogether 
hold with you. For from time to time, sir, seeing me altogether 
despairing and furious, like a wild beast in a pit, he set before me in 
secret earnestly the sweet promises of God in Christ, — who says, 
4 Come to me, all ye that are heavy laden, and I will refresh you; and 


162 


Westward Ho ! 

though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow/ — till 
all that past sinful life of mine looked like a dream when one awaketh, 
and I forgot all my bodily miseries in the misery of my soul, so did I 
loathe and hate myself for my rebellion against that loving God who 
had chosen me before the foundation of the world, and come to seek 
and save me when I was lost; and falling into very despair at the 
burden of my heinous sins, knew no peace until I gained sweet assur- 
ance that my Lord had hanged my burden upon His cross, and washed 
my sinful soul in His most sinless blood, Amen! ” 

And Sir Richard Grenvile said Amen also. 

“ But, gentlemen, if that sweet youth won a soul to Christ, he paid 
as dearly for it as ever did saint of God. For after a three or four 
months, when I had been all that while in sweet converse with him, 
and I may say in heaven in the midst of hell, there came one night to 
the barranco at Lima, where we were kept when on shore, three black 
devils of the Holy Office, and carried him off without a word, only 
saying to me, ‘ Look that your turn come not next, for we hear that 
you have had much talk with the villain/ And at these words I was 
so struck cold with terror that I swooned right away, and verily, if 
they had taken me there and then, I should have denied my God again, 
for my faith was but young and weak: but instead, they left me aboard 
the galley for a few months more (that was a whole voyage to Panama 
and back) , in daily dread lest I should find myself in their cruel claws 
again — and then nothing for me, but to burn as a relapsed heretic. 
But when we came back to Lima, the officers came on board again, and 
said to me, ‘ That heretic has confessed nought against you, so we 
will leave you for this time: but because you have been seen talking 
with him so much, and the Holy Office suspects your conversion to 
be but a rotten one, you are adjudged to the galleys for the rest of 
your life in perpetual servitude/ ” 

“ But what became of him? ” asked Amyas. 

“ He was burnt, sir, a day or two before we got to Lima, and five 
others with him at the same stake, of whom two were Englishmen; old 
comrades of mine, as I guess.” 

“Ah!” said Amyas, “we heard of that when we were off Lima; 
and they said too, that there were six more lying still in prison, to be 
burnt in a few days. If we had had our fleet with us (as we should 
have had if it had not been for John Winter) we would have gone in 
and rescued them all, poor wretches, and sacked the town to boot; 
but what could we do with one ship? ” 


Mr* John Oxenh&m 163 

Would to God you had, sir; for the story was true enough; and 
among them, I heard, were two young ladies of quality and their con- 
fessor, who came to their ends for reproving out of Scripture the 
filthy and loathsome living of those parts, which, as I saw well enough 
and too well, is liker to Sodom than to a Christian town; but God will 
avenge His saints, and their sins. Amen.” 

Amen, said Sir Richard: “ but on with thy tale, for it is as strange 
as ever man heard. ,, 

Well, gentlemen, when I heard that I must end my days in that 
galley, I was for a while like a madman: but in a day or two there 
came over me, I know not how, a full assurance of salvation, both for 
this life and the life to come, such as I had never had before; and it 
was revealed to me (I speak the truth, gentlemen, before Heaven) 
that now I had been tried to the uttermost, and that my deliverance 
was at hand. 

“And all the way up to Panama (that was after we had laden the 
Cacafuogo ) I cast in my mind how to escape, and found no way: 
but just as I was beginning to lose heart again, a door was opened 
by the Lord’s own hand; for (I know not why) we were marched 
across from Panama to Nombre, which had never happened before, 
and there put all together into a great barranco close by the quay-side, 
shackled as is the fashion, to one long bar that ran the whole length 
of the house. And the very first night that we were there, I, looking 
out of the window, spied, lying close aboard of the quay, a good-sized 
caravel well armed and just loading for sea; and the land breeze blew 
off very strong, so that the sailors were laying out a fresh warp to 
hold her to the shore. And it came into my mind, that if we were 
aboard of her, we should be at sea in five minutes ; and looking at the 
quay, I saw all the soldiers who had guarded us scattered about drink- 
ing and gambling, and some going into taverns to refresh themselves 
after their journey. That was just at sundown; and half an hour 
after, in comes the jailor to take a last look at us for the night, and his 
keys at his girdle. Whereon, sirs (whether by madness, or whether 
by the spirit which gave Samson strength to rend the lion), I rose 
against him as he passed me, without forethought or treachery of any 
kind, chained though I was, caught him by the head, and threw him 
there and then against the wall, that he never spoke word after; and 
then with his keys freed myself and every soul in that room, and bid 
them follow me, vowing to kill any man who disobeyed my commands. 
They followed, as men astounded, and leaping out of night into day, 


164 


Westward Ho ! 

and death into life, and so aboard that caravel and out of the harbor 
(the Lord only knows how, who blinded the eyes of the idolaters), 
with no more hurt than a few chance-shot from the soldiers on the 
quay. But my tale has been over-long already, gentlemen ” 

“ Go on till midnight, my good fellow, if you will.” 

“ Well, sirs, they chose me for Captain, and a certain Genoese for 
lieutenant, and away to go. I would fain have gone ashore after all, 
and back to Panama to hear news of the little maid: but that would 
have been but a fool’s errand. Some wanted to turn pirates: but I, 
and the Genoese too, who was a prudent man, though an evil one, per- 
suaded them to run for England and get employment in the Nether- 
land wars, assuring them that there would be no safety in the Spanish 
Main, when once our escape got wind. And the more part being of 
one mind, for England we sailed, watering at the Barbados because 
it was desolate; and so eastward toward the Canaries. In which 
voyage what we endured (being taken by long calms), by scurvy, 
calentures, hunger, and thirst, no tongue can tell. Many a time were 
we glad to lay out sheets at night to catch the dew, and suck them in 
the morning; and he that had a noggin of rain-water out of the 
scuppers was as much sought to as if he had been Adelantado of all 
the Indies; till of a hundred and forty poor wretches a hundred and 
ten were dead, blaspheming God and man, and above all, me and the 
Genoese for taking the Europe voyage, as if I had not sins enough of 
my own already. And last of all, when we thought ourselves safe, we 
were wrecked by southwesters on the coast of Brittany, near to Cape 
Race, from which but nine souls of us came ashore with their lives; 
and so to Brest, where I found a Flushinger who carried me to Fal- 
mouth ; and so ends my tale, in which if I have said one word more or 
less than truth, I can wish myself no worse, than to have it all to un- 
dergo a second time.” 

And his voice, as he finished, sank from very weariness of soul; 
while Sir Richard sat opposite him in silence, his elbows on the 
table, his cheeks on his doubled fists, looking him through and 
through with kindling eyes. No one spoke for several minutes; and 
then — 

“Amyas, you have heard this story? You believe it? ” 

“ Every word, sir, or I should not have the heart of a Christian 
man.” 

“ So do I. Anthony! ” 

The butler entered. 


165 


Mr. John Oxenliam 

“ Take this man to the buttery; clothe him comfortably, and feed 
him with the best ; and bid the knaves treat him as if he were their own 
father." 

But Yeo lingered. 

“ If I might be so bold as to ask your worship a favor? ” 

“Anything in reason, my brave fellow." 

“ If your worship could put me in the way of another adventure to 
the Indies? " 

“Another! Hast not had enough of the Spaniards already? " 

“ Never enough, sir, while one of the idolatrous tyrants is left un- 
hanged," said he, with a right bitter smile. “ But it’s not for that 
only, sir: but my little maid — Oh, sir! my little maid, that I swore to 
Mr. Oxenham to look to, and never saw her from that day to this ! I 
must find her, sir, or I shall go mad, I believe. Not a night but she 
comes and calls to me in my dreams, the poor darling; and not a morn- 
ing but when I wake there is my oath lying on my soul, like a great 
black cloud, and I no nearer the keeping of it. I told that poor young 
minister of it when we were in the galleys together ; and he said oaths 
were oaths, and keep it I must; and keep it I will, sir, if you’ll but 
help me." 

“ Have patience, man. God will take as good care of thy little 
maid as ever thou wilt." 

“ I know it, sir. I know it: but faith’s weak, sir! and oh! if she were 
bred up a Papist and an idolater; wouldn’t her blood be on my head 
then, sir? Sooner than that, sooner than that, I’d be in the Inquisition 
again to-morrow, I would!" 

“ My good fellow, there are no adventures to the Indies forward 
now: but if you want to fight Spaniards, here is a gentleman will show 
you the way. Amyas, take him with you to Ireland. If he has 
ieamed half the lessons God has set him to learn, he ought to stand 
you in good stead." 

Yeo looked eagerly at the young giant. 

“ Will you have me, sir? There’s few matters I can’t turn my hand 
to: and maybe you’ll be going to the Indies again, some day, eh? and 
take me with you? I’d serve your turn well, though I say it, either 
for gunner or for pilot. I know every stone and tree from Nombre 
to Panama, and all the ports of both the seas. You’ll never be con- 
tent, I’ll warrant, till you’ve had another turn along the gold coasts, 
will you now? ’’ 

Amyas laughed, and nodded; and the bargain was concluded. 


166 


Westwara Ho ! 

So out went Yeo to eat, and Amyas having received his despatches, 
got ready for his journey home. 

“ Go the short way over the moors, lad; and send back Cary’s gray 
when you can. You must not lose an hour, but be ready to sail the 
moment the wind goes about.” 

So they started: but as Amyas was getting into the saddle, he saw 
that there was some stir among the servants, who seemed to keep care- 
fully out of Yeo’s way, whispering and nodding mysteriously; and 
just as his foot was in the stirrup, Anthony, the old butler, plucked 
him back. 

“ Dear father alive, Mr. Amyas!” whispered he: “ and you ben’t 
going by the moor road all alone with that chap? ” 

“ Why not, then? I’m too big for him to eat, I reckon.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Amyas! he’s not right, I tell you; not company for a 
Christian — to go forth with creatures as has flames of fire in their in- 
wards ; ’tis temptation of Providence, indeed, then, it is.” 

“ Tale of a tub.” 

“ Tale of a Christian, sir. There was two boys pig-minding, seed 
him at it down the hill, beside a maiden that was taken mazed (and 
no wonder, poor soul!) and lying in screeching asterisks now down 
to the mill — you ask as you go by — and saw the flames come out of the 
mouth of mun, and the smoke out of mun’s nose like a vire-drake, and 
the roaring of mun like the roaring of ten thousand bulls. Oh, sir! 
and to go with he after dark over moor! ’Tis the devil’s devices, sir, 
against you, because you’m going against His sarvants the Pope of 
Room and the Spaniard; and you’ll be Pixy-led, sure as life, and 
locked into a bog, you will, and see mun vanish away to fire and brim- 
stone, like a jack-o’-lantern. Oh, have a care, then, have a care! ” 

And the old man wrung his hands, while Amyas, bursting with 
laughter, rode off down the park, with the unconscious Yeo at his 
stirrup, chatting away about the Indies, and delighting Amyas more 
and more by his shrewdness, high spirit, and rough eloquence. 

They had gone ten miles or more; the day began to draw in, and 
the western wind to sweep more cold and cheerless every moment, 
when Amyas, knowing that there was not an inn hard by around for 
many a mile ahead, took a pull at a certain bottle which Lady Gren- 
vile had put into his holster, and then offered Yeo a pull also. 

He declined; he had meat and drink too about him, Heaven be 
praised! 

“ Meat and drink? fall to then, man, and don’t stand on manners.” 


Mr* John Oxenh&m mi 

Whereon Yeo, seeing an old decayed willow by a brook, went to it, 
and took therefrom some touchwood, to which he set a light with his 
knife and a stone, while Amyas watched, a little puzzled and startled, 
as Yeo’s fiery reputation came into his mind. Was he really a Sala- 
mander-Sprite, and going to warm his inside by a meal of burning 
tinder? But now Yeo, in his solemn methodical way, pulled out of 
his bosom a brown leaf, and began rolling a piece of it up neatly to the 
size of his little finger; and then, putting the one end into his mouth 
and the other on the tinder, sucked at it till it was a-light; and drink- 
ing down the smoke, began puffing it out again at his nostrils with a 
grunt of deepest satisfaction, and resumed his dog-trot by Amyas’s 
side, as if he had been a walking chimney. 

On which Amyas burst into a loud laugh, and cried, 

“ Why, no wonder they said you breathed fire? Is not that the 
Indians’ tobacco? ” 

“ Yea, verily, Heaven be praised! but did you never see it before? ” 

“ Never, though we heard talk of it along the coast; but we took it 
for one more Spanish lie. Humph — well, live and learn! ” 

“Ah, sir, no lie, but a blessed truth, as I can tell, who have ere now 
gone in the strength of this weed three days and nights without eating; 
and therefore, sir, the Indians always carry it with them on their war- 
parties: and no wonder; for when all things were made none was made 
better than this ; to be a lone man’s companion, a bachelor’s friend, a 
hungry man’s food, a sad man’s cordial, a wakeful man’s sleep, and a 
chilly man’s fire, sir; while for stanching of wounds, purging of rheum, 
and settling of the stomach, there’s no herb like unto it under the 
canopy of heaven,” 

The truth of which eulogium Amyas tested in after years, as shall 
be fully set forth in due place and time. But “ Mark in the mean- 
while,” says one of the veracious chroniclers from whom I draw these 
facts, writing seemingly in the palmy days of good Queen Anne, and 
“not having” (as he says) “before his eyes the fear of that miso- 
capnic Solomon James I. or of any other lying Stuart,” “ that not to 
South Devon, but to North; not to Sir Walter Raleigh, but to Sir 
Amyas Leigh; not to the banks of Dart, but to the banks of Torridge, 
does Europe owe the day-spring of the latter age, that age of smoke 
which shall endure and thrive, when the age of brass shall have van- 
ished like those of iron and of gold; for whereas Mr. Lane is said to 
have brought home that divine weed (as Spenser well names it) from 
Virginia in the year 1584, it is hereby indisputable that full four 


168 Westward Ho I 

years earlier, by the bridge of Putford in the Torridge moors (which 
all true smokers shall hereafter visit as a hallowed spot and point of 
pilgrimage) first twinkled that fiery beacon and beneficent lodestar of 
Bidefordian commerce, to spread hereafter from port to port and peak 
to peak, like the watch-fires which proclaimed the coming of the 
Armada or the fall of Troy, even to the shores of the Bosphorus, the 
peaks of the Caucasus, and the farthest isles of the Malayan sea ; while 
Bideford, metropolis of tobacco, saw her Pool choked with Virginian 
traders, and the pavement of her Bridgeland Street groaning beneath 
the savory bales of roll Trinadado, leaf, and pudding; and her grave 
burghers, bolstered and blocked out of their own houses by the scarce 
less savory stock-fish casks which filled cellar, parlor, and attic, were 
fain to sit outside the door, a silver pipe in every strong right hand, 
and each left hand chinking cheerfully the doubloons deep lodged in 
the auriferous caverns of their trunkhose; while in those fairy-rings 
of fragrant mist, which circled round their contemplative brows, flitted 
most pleasant visions of Wiltshire farmers jogging into Sherborne 
fair, their heaviest shillings in their pockets, to buy ( unless old Aubrey 
lies) the lotus-leaf of Torridge for its weight in silver, and draw from 
thence, after the example of the Caciques of Dariena, supplies of in- 
spiration much needed, then as now, in those Gothamite regions. 
And yet did these improve, as Englishmen, upon the method of those 
heathen savages; for the latter (so Salvation Yeo reported as a truth, 
and Dampier’s surgeon, Mr. Wafer, after him), when they will de- 
liberate of war or policy, sit round in the hut of the chief ; where being 
placed, enter to them a small boy with a cigarro of the bigness of a 
rolling-pin, and puffs the smoke thereof* into the face of each warrior, 
from the eldest to the youngest; while they, putting their hand funnel- 
wise round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that 
more than Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy presently falls down 
in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and laid by to sober, 
enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out like- 
wise; and so on till the tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom has 
sprouted in every soul into the tree of meditation, bearing the flowers 
of eloquence, and in due time the fruit of valiant action.” With which 
quaint fact (for fact it is, in spite of the bombast) I end the present 
chapter. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

How tt?e noble Brotherhood of the Rose 
was founded. 


‘‘It is virtue, yea virtue, gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen; that maketh the poor 
rich, the base-born noble, the subject a sovereign, the deformed beautiful, the 
sick whole, the weak strong, the most miserable most happy. There are two 
principal and peculiar gifts in the nature of man, knowledge and reason ; the 
one commandeth, and the other obeyeth: these things neither the whirling 
wheel of fortune can change, neither the deceitful cavillings of worldlings 
separate, neither sickness abate, neither age abolish.” 

— Lilly’s Euphues, 1586. 

It now falls to my lot to write of the foundation of that most 
chivalrous brotherhood of the Rose, which after a few years made itself 
not only famous in its native county of Devon, but formidable, as will 
be related hereafter, both in Ireland and in the Netherlands, in the 
Spanish Main and the heart of South America. And if this chapter 
shall seem to any Quixotic and fantastical, let them recollect that the 
generation who spoke and acted thus in matters of love and honor 
were, nevertheless, practised and valiant soldiers, and prudent and 
crafty politicians; that he who wrote the Arcadia was at the same time, 
in spite of his youth, one of the subtlest diplomatists of Europe; that 
the poet of the Faery Queene was also the author of “ The State of 
Ireland ” ; and if they shall quote against me with a sneer Lilly’s 
Euphues itself, I shall only answer by asking — Have they ever read 
it? For if they have done so, I pity them if they have not found it, in 
spite of occasional tediousness and pedantry, as brave, righteous, and 
pious a book as man need look into; and wish for no better proof of 
the nobleness and virtue of the Elizabethan age, than the fact that 
“ Euphues ” and the “Arcadia ” were the two popular romances of 
the day. It may have suited the purposes of Sir Walter Scott, in his 
cleverly drawn Sir Piercie Shafton, to ridicule the Euphuists, and that 
afectatam comitatem of the traveled English of which Languet com- 
plains; but over and above the anachronism of the whole character 
(for, to give but one instance, the Euphuist knight talks of Sidney’s 
quarrel with Lord Oxford at least ten years before it happened), we 


170 


Westward Ho ! 

do deny that Lilly’s book could, if read by any man of common sense, 
produce such a coxcomb, whose spiritual ancestors would rather have 
been Gabriel Harvey and Lord Oxford, — if indeed the former has not 
maligned the latter, and ill-tempered Tom Nash maligned the 
maligner in his turn. 

But, indeed, there is a double anachronism in Sir Piercie; for he 
does not even belong to the days of Sidney, but to those worse times 
which began in the latter years of Elizabeth, and after breaking her 
mighty heart, had full license to bear their crop of fools’ heads in the 
profligate days of James. Of them, perhaps, hereafter. And in the 
meanwhile, let those who have not read “ Euphues,” believe that, if 
they could train a son after the fashion of his Ephoebus, to the great 
saving of their own money and his virtue, all fathers, even in these 
money-making days, would rise up and call them blessed. Let us 
rather open our eyes, and see in these old Elizabeth gallants our own 
ancestors, showing forth with the luxuriant wildness of youth, all the 
virtues which still go to the making of a true Englishman. Let us 
not only see in their commercial and military daring, in their political 
astuteness, in their deep reverence for law, and in their solemn sense 
of the great calling of the English nation, the antitypes or rather the 
examples of our own: but let us confess that their chivalry is only 
another garb of that beautiful tenderness and mercy which is now, as 
it was then, the twin sister of English valor; and even in their ex- 
travagant fondness for Continental manners and literature, let us 
recognize that old Anglo-Norman teachableness and wide-hearted- 
ness, which has enabled us to profit by the wisdom and civilization of 
all ages and of all lands, without prejudice to our own distinctive 
national character. 

And so I go to my story, which, if any one dislikes, he has but to 
turn the leaf till he finds pasturage which suits him better. 

Amyas could not sail the next day, or the day after; for the south- 
wester freshened, and blew three parts of a gale dead into the bay. 
So having got the Mary Grenvile down the river into Appledore pool, 
ready to start with the first shift of wind, he went quietly home; and 
when his mother started on a pillion behind the old serving-man to 
ride to Clovelly, where Frank lay wounded, he went in with her as 
far as Bideford, and there met, coming down the High Street, a pro- 
cession of horsemen headed by Will Cary, who, clad cap-a-pie in 
shining armor, sword on thigh, and helmet at saddle-bow, looked as 
gallant a young gentleman as ever Bideford dames peeped at from 


The Brotherhood of the “Rose 171 

door and window. Behind him, upon country ponies, came four or 
five stout serving-men, carrying his lances and baggage, and their own 
long-bows, swords, and bucklers; and behind all, in a horse-litter, to 
Mrs. Leigh’s great joy, Master Frank himself. He deposed that his 
wounds were only flesh-wounds, the dagger having turned against his 
ribs; that he must see the last of his brother; and that with her good 
leave he would not come home to Burrough, but take up his abode with 
Cary in the Ship Tavern, close to the Bridge-foot. This he did forth- 
with, and settling himself on a couch, held his levee there in state, 
mobbed by all the gossips of the town, not without white fibs as to 
who had brought him into that sorry plight. 

But in the meanwhile, he and Amyas concocted a scheme, which was 
put into effect the next day (being market-day) ; first by the inn- 
keeper, who began under Amyas’s orders a bustle of roasting, boiling, 
and frying, unparalleled in the annals of the Ship Tavern; and next 
by Amyas himself, who, going out into the market, invited as many of 
his old schoolfellows, one by one apart, as Frank had pointed out to 
him, to a merry supper and a “ rowse ” thereon consequent; by which 
crafty scheme, in came each of Rose Salterne’s gentle admirers, and 
found himself, to his considerable disgust, seated at the same table with 
six rivals, to none of whom had he spoken for the last six months. 
However, all were too well bred to let the Leighs discern as much; 
and they (though, of course, they knew all) settled their guests, Frank 
on his couch lying at the head of the table, and Amyas taking the 
bottom : and contrived, by filling all mouths with good things, to save 
them the pain of speaking to each other till the wine should have 
loosened their tongues and warmed their hearts. In the meanwhile 
both Amyas and Frank, ignoring the silence of their guests with the 
most provoking good-humor, chatted, and joked, and told stories, and 
made themselves such good company, that Will Cary, who always 
found merriment infectious, melted into a jest, and then into another, 
and finding good humor far more pleasant than bad, tried to make 
Mr. Coffin laugh, and only made him bow, and to make Mr. Fortescue 
laugh, and only made him frown; and unabashed nevertheless, began 
playing his light artillery upon the waiters, till he drove them out of 
the room bursting with laughter. 

So far so good. And when the cloth was drawn, and sack and 
sugar became the order of the day, and “ Queen and Bible ” had been 
duly drunk with all the honors, Frank tried a fresh move, and — 

“ I have a toast, gentlemen — here it is. 4 The gentlemen of the 


172 


Westward Ho ! 

Irish wars; and may Ireland never be without a St. Leger to stand by 
a Fortescue, a Forteseue to stand by a St. Leger, and a Chichester to 
stand by both.’ ” 

Which toast of course involved the drinking the healths of the three 
representatives of those families, and their returning thanks, and pay- 
ing a compliment each to the other’s house: and so the ice cracked a 
little further; and young Fortescue proposed the health of 4 ‘Amy as 
Leigh, and all bold mariners ”; to which Arnyas replied by a few blunt 
kindly words, “ that he wished to know no better fortune than to sail 
round the world again with the present company as fellow-ad- 
venturers, and so give the Spaniards another taste of the men of 
Devon.” 

And by this time, the wine going down sweetly, caused the lips of 
them that were asleep to speak; till the ice broke up altogether, and 
every man began talking like a rational Englishman to the man who 
sat next him. 

“And now, gentlemen,” said Frank, who saw that it was the fit 
moment for the grand assault which he had planned all along; “ let me 
give you a health which none of you, I dare say, will refuse to drink 
with heart and soul as well as with lips; — the health of one whom 
beauty and virtue have so ennobled, that in their light the shadow of 
lowly birth is unseen; — the health of one whom I would proclaim as 
peerless in loveliness, were it not that every gentleman here has sisters, 
who might well challenge from her the girdle of Venus: and yet what 
else dare I say, while those same lovely ladies who, if they but use their 
own mirrors, must needs be far better judges of beauty than I can 
be, have in my own hearing again and again assigned the palm to her? 
Surely, if the goddesses decide among themselves the question of the 
golden apple, Paris himself must vacate the judgment-seat. Gentle- 
men, your hearts, I doubt not, have already bid you, as my unworthy 
lips do now, to drink ‘ The Rose of Torridge.’ ” 

If the Rose of Torridge herself had walked into the room, she could 
hardly have caused more blank astonishment than Frank’s bold speech. 
Every guest turned red, and pale, and red again, and looked at the 
other, as much as to say, “ What right has any one but I to drink her? 
Lift your glass, and I will dash it out of your hand: ” but Frank, 
with sweet effrontery, drank, “ The health of the Rose of Torridge, 
and a double health to that worthy gentleman, whosoever he may be, 
whom she is fated to honor with her love! ” 

“Well done, cunning Frank Leigh!” cried blunt Will Cary; 


The Brotherhood of the 173 

“ none of us dare quarrel with you now, however much we may sulk 
at each other. For there’s none of us, I’ll warrant, but thinks that 
she likes him the best of all ; and so we are bound to believe that you 
have drunk our healths all round.” 

“And so I have: and what better thing can you do, gentlemen, than 
to drink each other’s healths all round likewise: and so show your- 
selves true gentlemen, true Christians, ay, and true lovers? For what 
is love (let me speak freely to you, gentlemen and guests), what is 
love, but the very inspiration of that Deity whose name is Love? Be 
sure that not without reason did the ancients feign Eros to be the eld- 
est of the gods, by whom the jarring elements of chaos were attuned 
into harmony and order. How then shall lovers make him the father 
of strife? Shall Psyche wed with Cupid, to bring forth a cockatrice’s 
egg? or the soul be filled with love, the likeness of the immortals, to 
burn with envy and jealousy, division and distrust? True, the rose 
has its thorn: but it leaves poison and stings to the nettle. Cupid has 
his arrow: but he hurls no scorpions. Venus is awful when despised, 
as the daughters of Proetus found: but her handmaids are the Graces, 
not the Furies. Surely he who loves aright will not only find love 
lovely, but become himself lovely also. I speak not to reprehend you, 
gentlemen; for to you (as your piercing wits have already perceived, 
to judge by your honorable blushes) my discourse tends; but to point 
you, if you will but permit me, to that rock which I myself have, I 
know not by what Divine good hap, attained; if, indeed, I have at- 
tained it, and am not about to be washed off again by the next tide.” 

Frank’s rapid and fantastic oratory, utterly unexpected as it was, 
had as yet left their wits no time to set their tempers on fire; but when, 
weak from his wounds, he paused for breath, there was a haughty 
murmur from more than one young gentleman, who took his speech 
as an impertinent interference with each man’s right to make a fool of 
himself; and Mr. Coffin, who had sat quietly bolt upright, and looking 
at the opposite wall, now rose as quietly, and with a face which tried 
to look utterly unconcerned, was walking out of the room: another 
minute, and Lady Bath’s prophecy about the feast of the Lapithae 
might have come true. 

But Frank’s heart and head never failed him. 

“ Mr. Coffin! ” said he, in a tone which compelled that gentleman to 
turn round, and so brought him under the power of a face which none 
could have beheld for five minutes and borne malice, so imploring, 
tender, earnest was it. “My dear Mr. Coffin! If my earnestness 


174 


Westward Ho ! 

has made me forget even for a moment the bounds of courtesy, let me 
entreat you to forgive me. Do not add to my heavy griefs, heavy 
enough already, the grief of losing a friend. Only hear me patiently 
to the end (generously, I know, you will hear me) ; and then, if you 
are still incensed, I can but again entreat your forgiveness a second 
time.” 

Mr. Coffin, to tell the truth, had at that time never been to Court; 
and he was, therefore, somewhat jealous of Frank, and his Court talk, 
and his Court clothes, and his Court company; and moreover, being 
the eldest of the guests, and only two years younger than Frank him- 
self, he was a little nettled at being classed in the same category with 
some who were scarce eighteen. And if Frank had given the least 
hint which seemed to assume his own superiority, all had been lost: 
but when, instead thereof, he sued in forma pauperis , and threw him- 
self upon Coffin’s mercy, the latter, who was a true-hearted man 
enough, and after all had known Frank ever since either of them could 
walk, had nothing to do but to sit down again and submit, while Frank 
went on more earnestly than ever. 

“ Believe me; believe me, Mr. Coffin, and gentlemen all, I no more 
arrogate to myself a superiority over you, than does the sailor hurled 
on shore by the surge fancy himself better than his comrade who is 
still battling with the foam. For I too, gentlemen, — let me confess 
it, that by confiding in you I may, perhaps, win you to confide in me, — 
have loved, ay and do love, where you love also. Do not start. Is it 
a matter of wonder that the sun which has dazzled you has dazzled me: 
that the lodestone which has drawn you has drawn me? Do not 
frown, either, gentlemen. I have learned to love you for loving what 
I love, and to admire you for admiring that which I admire. Will 
you not try the same lesson; so easy, and, when learned, so blissful? 
What breeds more close communion between subjects, than allegiance 
to the same Queen? between brothers, than duty to the same father? 
between the devout, than adoration for the same Deity? And shall 
not worship for the same beauty be likewise a bond of love between the 
worshipers? and each lover see in his rival not an enemy, but a fellow- 
sufferer? You smile and say in your hearts, that though all may wor- 
ship, but one can enjoy; and that one man’s meat must be the poison 
of the rest. Be it so, though I deny it. Shall we anticipate our own 
doom, and slay ourselves for fear of dying? Shall we make ourselves 
unworthy of her from our very eagerness to win her, and show our- 
selves her faithful knights, by cherishing envy, — most unknightly of all 


Tiie Brotherhood of the 'Rose 175 

sins? Shall we dream with the Italian or the Spaniard that we can 
become more amiable in a lady’s eyes, by becoming hateful in the eyes 
of God and of each other? Will she love us the better, if we come to 
her with hands stained in the blood of him whom she loves better than 
us? Let us recollect ourselves rather, gentlemen; and be sure that 
our only chance of winning her, if she be worth winning, is to will 
what she wills, honor whom she honors, love whom she loves. If there 
is to be rivalry among us, let it be a rivalry in nobleness, an emulation 
in virtue. Let each try to outstrip the other in loyalty to his Queen, 
in valor against her foes, in deeds of courtesy and mercy to the af- 
flicted and oppressed; and thus our love will indeed prove its own 
divine origin, by raising us nearer to those gods whose gift it is. But 
3 r et I show you a more excellent way, and that is charity. Why should 
we not make this common love to her, whom I am unworthy to name, 
the sacrament of a common love to each other? Why should we not 
follow the heroical examples of those ancient knights, who having but 
one grief, one desire, one goddess, held that one heart was enough to 
contain that grief, to nourish that desire, to worship that divinity ; and 
so uniting themselves in friendship till they became but one soul in 
two bodies, lived only for each other in living only for her, vowing, as 
faithful worshipers, to abide by her decision, to find their own bliss in 
hers, and whomsoever she esteemed most worthy of her love, to esteem 
most worthy also, and count themselves, by that her choice, the 
bounden servants of him whom their mistress had condescended to ad- 
vance to the dignity of her master? — as I (not without hope that I 
shall be outdone in generous strife) do here promise to be the faithful 
friend, and, to my ability, the hearty servant, of him who shall be 
honored with the love of the Rose of Torridge.” 

He ceased, and there was a pause. 

At last young Fortescue spoke. 

“ I may be paying you a left-handed compliment, sir: but it seems 
to me that you are so likely, in that case, to become your own faithful 
friend and hearty servant (even if you have not borne off the bell al- 
ready while we have been asleep), that the bargain is hardly fair be- 
tween such a gay Italianist and us country swains.” 

“ You undervalue yourself and your country, my dear sir. But set 
your mind at rest. I know no more of that lady’s mind than you do; 
nor shall I know. For the sake of my own peace, I have made a vow 
neither to see her, nor to hear, if possible, tidings of her, till three full 
years are past. Dixi? ” 


Westward Ho ! 


176 

Mr. Coffin rose. 

“ Gentlemen, I may submit to be outdone by Mr. Leigh in elo- 
quence, but not in generosity; if he leaves these parts for three years, 
I do so also.” 

“And go in charity with all mankind,” said Cary. “ Give us your 
hand, old fellow. If you are a Coffin, you were sawn out of no wishy- 
washy elm-board, but right heart-of-oak. I am going, too, as Amyas 
here can tell, to Ireland away, to cool my hot liver in a bog, like a 
Jack-hare in March. Come, give us thy neif, and let us part in peace. 
I was minded to have fought thee this day ” 

“ I should have been most happy, sir,” said Coffin. 

— “ But now I am all love and charity to mankind. Can I have the 
pleasure of begging pardon of the world in general, and thee in par- 
ticular? Does any one wish to pull my nose; send me an errand; 
make me lend him five pounds ; ay, make me buy a horse of him, which 
will be as good as giving him ten? Come along! Join hands all round, 
and swear eternal friendship, as brothers of the sacred order of the — 
of what? Frank Leigh? Open thy mouth, Daniel, and christen 
us! ” 

“ The Rose!” said Frank, quietly, seeing that his new love-philtre 
was working well, and determined to strike while the iron was hot, and 
carry the matter too far to carry it back again. 

“The Rose!” cried Cary, catching hold of Coffin’s hand with his 
right, and Fortescue’s with his left. “ Come, Mr. Coffin! Bend, 
sturdy oak? ‘Woe to the stiffnecked and stout-hearted!’ says 
Scripture.” 

And somehow or other, whether it was Frank’s chivalrous speech, or 
Cary’s fun, or Amyas’s good wine, or the nobleness which lies in every 
young lad’s heart, if their elders will take the trouble to call it out, 
the whole party came in to terms one by one, shook hands all round, 
and vowed on the hilt of Amyas’s sword, to make fools of themselves 
no more, at least by jealousy: but to stand by each other and by their 
lady-love, and neither grudge nor grumble, let her dance with, flirt 
with, or marry with, whom she would; and in order that the honor of 
their peerless dame, and the brotherhood which was named after her, 
might be spread through all lands, and equal that of Angelica or 
Isonde of Brittany, they would each go home, and ask their fathers’ 
leave (easy enough to obtain in those brave times) to go abroad where- 
soever there were “ good wars,” to emulate there the courage and the 
courtesy of Walter Manny and Gonzalo Fernandes, Bayard and 


Tfi& Brotherhood of the "Rose 177 

Gaston de Foix. Why not? Sidney was the hero of Europe at five- 
and-twenty; and why not they? 

And Frank watched and listened with one of his quiet smiles (his 
eyes, as some folks do, smiled even when his lips were still) and only 
said: “ Gentlemen, be sure that you will never repent this day.” 

“Repent?” said Cary. “I feel already as angelical as thou 
lookest, Saint Silvertongue. What was it that sneezed? — the cat?” 

“ The lion, rather, by the roar of it,” said Amyas, making a dash 
at the arras behind him. “ Why, here is a doorway here! and ” 

And rushing under the arras, through an open door behind, he re- 
turned, dragging out by the head Mr. John Brimblecombe. 

Who was Mr. John Brimblecombe? 

If you have forgotten him, you have done pretty nearly what every 
one else in the room had done. But you recollect a certain fat lad, 
son of the schoolmaster, whom Sir Richard punished for talebearing 
three years before, by sending him, not to Coventry, but to Oxford. 
That was the man. He was now one-and-twenty, and a bachelor of 
Oxford, where he had learned such things as were taught in those 
days, with more or less success ; and he was now hanging about Bide- 
ford once more, intending to return after Christmas and read divinity, 
that he might become a parson, and a shepherd of souls in his native 
land. 

Jack was in person exceedingly like a pig: but not like every pig: 
not in the least like the Devon pigs of those days, which, I am sorry 
to say, were no more shapely than the true Irish greyhound who pays 
Pat’s “ rint ” for him; or than the lanky monsters who wallow in Ger- 
man rivulets, while the village swineherd, beneath a shady lime, for- 
gets his fleas in the melody of a Jew’s-harp — strange mud-colored 
creatures, four feet high and four inches thick, which look as if 
they had passed their lives, as a collar of Oxford brawn is said to do, 
between two tight boards. Such were then the pigs of Devon: not to 
be compared with the true wild descendant of Noah’s stock, high- 
withered, furry, grizzled, game-flavored little rooklers, whereof many 
a sownder still grunted about Swinley down and Braunton woods, 
Clovelly glens and Bursdon moor. Not like these, nor like the tame 
abomination of those barbarous times, was Jack: but prophetic in face, 
figure, and complexion, of Fisher Hobbs and the triumphs of science. 
A Fisher Hobbs’ pig of twelve stone, on his hind legs — that was what 
he was, and nothing else; and if you do not know, reader, what a Fisher 
Hobbs is, you know nothing about pigs, and deserve no bacon for 


178 


Westward Ho t 

breakfast. But such was Jack. The same plump mulberry com- 
plexion, garnished with a few scattered black bristles; the same sleek 
skin, looking always as if it was upon the point of bursting; the same 
little toddling legs ; the same dapper bend in the small of the back ; the 
same cracked squeak; the same low upright forehead, and tiny eyes; 
the same round self-satisfied jowl; the same charming sensitive little 
cocked nose, always on the lookout for a savory smell, — and yet while 
watching for the best, contented with the worst ; a pig of self-helpf ul 
and serene spirit, as Jack was, and therefore, like him, fatting fast 
while other pigs’ ribs are staring through their skins. 

Such was Jack; and lucky it was for him that such he was; for it was 
little that he got to fat him at Oxford, in days when a servitor meant 
really a servant-student ; and wistfully that day did his eyes, led by his 
nose, survey at the end of the Ship Inn passage the preparations for 
Amyas’s supper. The innkeeper was a friend of his; for, in the first 
place, they had lived within three doors of each other all their lives; 
and next, Jack was quite pleasant company enough, beside being a 
learned man and an Oxford scholar, to be asked in now and then to the 
innkeeper’s private parlor, when there were no gentlemen there, to 
crack his little joke and tell his little story, sip the leavings of the 
guests’ sack, and sometimes help the host to eat the leavings of their 
supper. And it was, perhaps, with some such hope that Jack trotted 
off round the corner to the Ship that very afternoon; for that faithful 
little nose of his, as it sniffed out of a back window of the school, had 
given him warning of Sabean gales, and scents of Paradise, from the 
inn kitchen below; so he went round, and asked for his pot of small 
ale (his only luxury), and stood at the bar to drink it; and looked in- 
ward with his little twinkling right eye and sniffed inward with his 
little curling right nostril, and beheld, in the kitchen beyond, salad in 
stacks and faggots; salad of lettuce, salad of cress and endive, salad of 
boiled coleworts, salad of pickled coleworts, salad of angelica, salad of 
scurvy- wort, and seven salads more; for potatoes were not as yet, and 
salads were during eight months of the year the only vegetable. And 
on the dresser, and before the fire, whole hecatombs of fragrant vic- 
tims, which needed neither frankincense nor myrrh ; Clovelly herrings 
and Torridge salmon, Exmoor mutton and Stow venison, stubble 
geese and woodcocks, curlew and snipe, hams of Hampshire, chitter- 
lings of Taunton, and botargos of Cadiz, such as Pantagrue himself 
might have devoured. And Jack eyed them, as a ragged boy eyes 
the cakes in a pastrycook’s window; and thought of the scraps from 


The Brotherhood ofthe'Hos© 179 

the commoner’s dinner, which were his wages for cleaning out the hall; 
and meditated deeply on the unequal distribution of human bliss. 

“Ah, Mr. Brimblecombe ! ” said the host, bustling out with knife 
and apron to cool himself in the passage. “ Here are doings! Nine 
gentlemen to supper ! ” 

“ Nine! Are they going to eat all that? 99 

“ Well, I can’t say — that Mr. Amy as is as good as three to his 
trencher: but still there’s crumbs, Mr. Brimblecombe, crumbs; and 
W aste not want not is my doctrine ; so you and I may have a somewhat 
to stay our stomach, about an eight o’clock.” 

“ Eight? ” said J ack, looking wistfully at the clock. “ It’s but four 
now. Well, it’s kind of you, and perhaps I’ll look in.” 

“ Just you step in now, and look to this venison. There’s a breast ! 
you may lay your two fingers into the say there, and not get to the 
bottom of the fat. That’s Sir Bichard’s sending. He’s all for them 
Leighs, and no wonder, they’in brave lads, surely ; and there’s a saddle- 
o’-mutton! I rode twenty miles for mun yesterday, I did, over be- 
yond Barnstaple; and five year old, Mr. John, it is, if ever five years 
was; and not a tooth to mun’s head, for I looked to that; and smelt 
all the way home like any apple; and if it don’t ate so soft as ever was 
scald cream, never you call me Thomas Burman.” 

“ Humph! ” said Jack. “And that’s their dinner. Well, some are 
born with a silver spoon in their mouth.” 

“ Some be born with roast beef in their mouths, and plum-pudding 
in their pocket to take away the taste o’ mun; and that’s better than 
empty spunes, eh? ” 

“ For them that get it,” said Jack. “ But for them that don’t ” 

And with a sigh he returned to his small ale, and then lingered in and 
out of the inn, watching the dinner as it went into the best room, where 
the guests were assembled. 

And as he lounged there, Amyas went in, and saw him, and held 
out his hand, and said, — 

“ Hillo, Jack! how goes the world! How you’ve grown!” and 
passed on; — what had Jack Brimblecombe to do with Bose Salterne? 

So Jack lingered on, hovering around the fragrant smell like a fly 
round a honey-pot, till he found himself invisibly attracted, and as it 
were led by the nose out of the passage into the adjoining room, and 
to that side of the room where there was a door; and once there he 
could not help hearing what passed inside; till Bose Salterne’s name 
fell on his ear. So, as it was ordained, he was taken in the fact. And 


180 


Westward Ho ! 

now behold him brought in red-hand to judgment, not without a kick 
or two from the wrathful foot of AmVas Leigh. Whereat there fell 
on him a storm of abuse, which, for the honor of that gallant company, 
I shall not give in detail; but which abuse, strange to say, seemed to 
have no effect on the impenitent and unabashed J ack, who, as soon as 
he could get his breath, made answer fiercely, amid much puffing and 
blowing. 

“ What business have I here? As much as any of you. If you had 
asked me in, I would have come: but as you didn’t, I came without 
asking.” 

“You shameless rascal!” said Cary. “Come if you were asked, 
where there was good wine? I’ll warrant you for that! ” 

“ Why,” said Amyas, “ no lad ever had a cake at school, but he 
would dog him up one street and down another all day for the crumbs, 
the trencher-scraping spaniel ! ” 

“ Patience, masters! ” said Frank. “ That Jack’s is somewhat of a 
gnathonic and parasitic soul, or stomach, all Bideford apple-women 
know: but I suspect more than Deus Venter has brought him 
hither.” 

“ Deus eaves-dropping, then. We shall have the whole story over 
the town by to-morrow,” said another; beginning at that thought to 
feel somewhat ashamed of his late enthusiasm. 

“Ah, Mr. Frank! You were always the only one that would stand 
up for me! Deus Venter, quotha? ’Twas Deus Cupid, it was ! ” 

A roar of laughter followed this announcement. 

“ What? ” asked Frank; “ was it Cupid, then, who sneezed approval 
to our love, Jack, as he did to that of Dido and iEneas? ” 

But Jack went on desperately. 

“ I was in the next room, drinking of my beer. I couldn’t help that, 
could I? And then I heard her name; and I couldn’t help listening 
then. Flesh and blood couldn’t.” 

“ Nor fat either! ” 

“ No, nor fat, Mr. Cary. Do you suppose fat men haven’t souls to 
be saved, as well as thin ones, and hearts to burst, too, as well as 
stomachs? Fat! Fat can feel, I reckon, as well as lean. Do you 
suppose there’s nought inside here but beer? ” 

And he laid his hand, as Drayton might have said, on that stout 
bastion, hornwork, ravelin, or demilune, which formed the outworks 
to the citadel of his purple isle of man. 

“ Nought but beer? — Cheese, I suppose? ” 


181 


Tfse Brotherhood of the Hose 

“ Bread?” 

“ Beef? ” 

“ Love! ” cried Jack. “ Yes, Love! — Ay, you laugh; but my eyes 
are not so grown up with fat but what I can see what's fair as well as 
you.” 

“ Oh, J ack, naughty J ack, dost thou heap sin on sin, and luxury on 
gluttony? ” 

“ Sin? If I sin, you sin: I tell you, and I don’t care who knows it, 
I’ve loved her these three years as well as e’er a one of you, I have. 
I’ve thought o’ nothing else, prayed for nothing else, God forgive me! 
And then you laugh at me, because I’m a poor parson’s son, and you 
fine gentlemen: God made us both, I reckon. You? — you make a deal 
of giving her up to-day. Why, it’s what I’ve done for three miserable 
years as ever poor sinner spent; ay, from the first day I said to myself, 
‘ J ack, if you can’t have that pearl, you’ll have none ; and that you 
can’t have, for it’s meat for your masters; so conquer or die.’ And I 
couldn’t conquer. I can’t help loving her, worshiping her, no more 
than you; and I will die: but you needn’t laugh meanwhile at me that 
have done as much as you, and will do again.” 

“ It is the old tale,” said Frank to himself ; “ whom will not love 
transform into a hero? ” 

And so it was. Jack’s squeaking voice was firm and manly, his 
pig’s eyes flashed very fire, his gestures were so free and earnest, that 
the ungainliness of his figure was forgotten; and when he finished with 
a violent burst of tears, Frank, forgetting his wounds, sprang up and 
caught him by the hand. 

“John Brimblecombe, forgive me! Gentlemen, if we are gentle- 
men, we ought to ask his pardon. Has he not shown already more 
chivalry, more self-denial, and therefore more true love, than any of 
us? My friends, let the fierceness of affection, which we have used as 
an excuse for many a sin of our own, excuse his listening to a conver- 
sation in which he well deserved to bear a part.” 

“Ah,” said Jack, “ you make me one of your brotherhood; and see 
if I do not dare to suffer as much as any of you! You laugh? Do 
you fancy none can use a sword unless he has a baker’s dozen of quar- 
terings in his arms, or that Oxford scholars know only how to handle 
a pen? ” 

“ Let us try his metal,” said St. Leger. “ Here’s my sword, Jack; 
draw, Coffin ! and have at him.” 

“ Nonsense! ” said Coffin, looking somewhat disgusted at the notion 


182 Westward Ho ! 

of fighting a man of Jack’s rank; but Jack caught at the weapon 
offered to him. 

“ Give me a buckler, and have at any of you! ” 

“Here’s a chair bottom,” cried Cary; and Jack, seizing it in his 
left, flourished his sword so fiercely, and called so loudly to Coffin to 
come on, that all present found it necessary, unless they wished blood 
to be spilled, to turn the matter off with a laugh: but Jack would not 
hear of it. 

“Nay: if you will let me be of your brotherhood, well and good: but 
if not, one or other I will fight: and that’s flat.” 

“You see, gentlemen,” said Amy as, “ we must admit him, or die 
the death; so we needs must go when Sir Urian drives. Come up, 
Jack, and take the oaths. You admit him, gentlemen? ” 

“ Let me but be your chaplain,” said Jack, “ and pray for your luck 
when you’re at the wars. If I do stay at home in a country curacy, 
’tis not much that you need be jealous of me with her, I reckon,” said 
Jack, with a pathetical glance at his own stomach. 

“ Sia!” said Cary: “but if he be admitted, it must be done ac- 
cording to the solemn forms and ceremonies in such cases provided. 
Take him into the next room, Amyas, and prepare him for his initia- 
tion.” 

“What’s that?” asked Amyas, puzzled by the word. But judg- 
ing from the corner of Will’s eye that initiation was Latin for a prac- 
tical joke, he led forth his victim behind the arras again, and waited 
five minutes while the room was being darkened, till Frank’s voice 
called to him to bring in the neophyte. 

“ John Brimbleeombe,” said Frank, in a sepulchral tone, “ you can- 
not be ignorant, as a scholar and bachelor of Oxford, of that dread 
Sacrament by which Cataline bound the soul of his fellow-conspira- 
tors, in order that both by the daring of the deed he might have proof 
of their sincerity, and by the horror thereof astringe their souls by 
adamantine fetters, and Novem- Stygian oaths, to that wherefrom 
hereafter the weakness of the flesh might shrink. Wherefore, O Jack ! 
we too have determined, following that ancient and classical example, 
to fill, as he did, a bowl with the life-blood of our most heroic selves, 
and to pledge each other therein, with vows whereat the stars shall 
tremble in their spheres, and Luna, blushing, veil her silver cheeks. 
Your blood alone is wanted to fill up the goblet. Sit down, John 
Brimbleeombe, and bare your arm ! ” 

“ But, Mr. Frank! ” said Jack; who was as superstitious as any 


183 


The Brotherhood of the 'Rose 

old wife, and, what with the darkness and the discourse, already in a 
cold perspiration. 

“ But me no huts! or depart as recreant, not by the door like a man, 
but up the chimney like a flittermouse.” 

“ But, Mr. Frank! ” 

“ Thy vital juice, or the chimney! Choose! ” roared Cary in his ear. 

“ Well, if I must/’ said Jack; “ but it’s desperate hard that because 
you can’t keep faith without these barbarous oaths, I must take them 
too, that have kept faith these three years without any.” 

At this pathetic appeal, Frank nearly melted: but Amyas and Cary 
had thrust the victim into a chair and all was prepared for the sacrifice. 

“ Bind his eyes, according to the classic fashion,” said Will. 

“ Oh no, dear Mr. Cary; I’ll shut them tight enough, I warrant: 
but not with your dagger, dear Mr. William — sure, not with your 
dagger? I can’t afford to lose blood, though I do look lusty — I can’t 
indeed; sure, a pin would do — I’ve got one here, to my sleeve, some- 
where — Oh! ” 

“ See the fount of generous juice! Flow on, fair stream. How he 
bleeds! — pints, quarts! Ah, this proves him to be in earnest! ” 

“ A true lover’s blood is always at his fingers’ ends.” 

“ He does not grudge it; of course not. Eh, Jack? What matters 
an odd gallon for her sake? ” 

“ For her sake? Nothing, nothing! Take my life, if you will: hut 
— Oh, gentlemen, a surgeon, if you love me! I’m going off — I’m 
fainting!” 

“ Drink, then, quick; drink and swear ! Pat his back, Cary. Cour- 
age, man! it will be over in a minute. Now, Frank! ” 

And Frank spoke — 

* 4 If plighted troth I fail, or secret speech reveal, 

May Cocytean ghosts around my pillow squeal ; 

While Ate’s brazen claws distringe my spleen in sunder, 

And drag me deep to Pluto’s keep, ’mid brimstone, smoke, and thunder! ” 

“ Placetne, domine? ” 

“Placet!” squeaked Jack, who thought himself at the last gasp, 
and gulped down full three-quarters of the goblet which Cary held to 
his lips. 

“ XJgh — Ah— Pub ! Mercy on us ! It tastes mighty like wine ! ” . 

“A proof, my virtuous brother,” said Frank, “ first, of thy abstemi- 
ousness, which has thus forgotten what wine tastes like; and next, of 


184 


Westward Ho ! 


thy pure and heroical affection, by which thy carnal senses being ex- 
alted to a higher and supra-lunar sphere, like those Platonical dgemoni- 
zomenoi and enthusiazomenoi (of whom Jamblichus says that they 
were insensible to wounds and flame, and much more, therefore, to 
evil savors), doth make even the most nauseous draught redolent of 
that celestial fragrance, which proceeding, O Jack! from thine own 
inward virtue, assimilates by sympathy even outward accidents unto 
its own harmony and melody; for fragrance is, as has been said well, 
the song of flowers and sweetness, the music of apples — Ahem ! Go 
in peace, thou hast conquered! ” 

“ Put him out of the door, Will,” said Amyas, “ or he will swoon on 
our hands.” 

“ Give him some sack,” said Prank. 

“ Not a blessed drop of yours, sir,” said Jack. “ I like good wine 
as well as any man on earth, and see as little of it ; but not a drop of 
yours, sirs, after your frumps and flouts about hanging-on and 
trencher-scraping. When I first began to love her, I bid good-bye to 
all dirty tricks; for I had some one then for whom to keep myself 
clean.” 

And so Jack was sent home, with a pint of good red Alicant wine in 
him (more, poor fellow, than he had tasted at once in his life before) ; 
while the rest, in high glee with themselves and the rest of the world, 
relighted the candles, had a right merry evening, and parted like good 
friends and sensible gentlemen of Devon, thinking (all except Frank) 
Jack Brimblecombe and his vow the merriest jest they had heard for 
many a day. After which they all departed: Amyas and Cary to 
Winter’s squadron; Frank (as soon as he could travel) to the Court 
again; and with him young Basset, whose father Sir Arthur, being in 
London, procured for him a page’s place in Leicester’s household. 
Fortescue and Chichester went to their brothers in Dublin; St. Leger 
to his uncle the Marshal of Munster; Coffin joined Champernoun and 
Norris in the Netherlands; and so the Brotherhood of the Rose was 
scattered far and wide, and Mistress Salterne was left alone with her 
looking-glass. 



CHAPTER IX. 

How Amy as kept his Christmas Day. 

“Take aim, you noble musqueteers, 

And shoot you round about; 

Stand to it, valiant pikemen, 

And we shall keep them out. 

There’s not a man of all of us 
A foot will backward flee ; 

I ’ll be the foremost man in fight, 

Says brave Lord Willoughby! ” 

Elizabethan Ballad. 

It was the blessed Christmas afternoon. The light was fading 
down; the even-song was done; and the good folks of Bideford were 
trooping home in merry groups, the father with his children, the lover 
with his sweetheart, to cakes and ale, and flapdragons and mummer’s 
plays, and all the happy sports of Christmas night. One lady only, 
wrapped close in her black muffler and followed by her maid, walked 
swiftly, yet sadly, toward the long causeway and bridge which led to 
Northam town. Sir Richard Grenvile and his wife caught her up and 
stopped her courteously. 

“ You will come home with us, Mrs. Leigh,” said Lady Grenvile, 
“ and spend a pleasant Christmas night? ” 

Mrs. Leigh smiled sweetly, and laying one hand on Lady Grenvile’s 
arm, pointed with the other to the westward, and said — 

“ I cannot well spend a merry Christmas night, while that sound is 
in my ears.” 

The whole party around looked in the direction in which she pointed. 
Above their heads the soft blue sky was fading into gray, and here and 
there a misty star peeped out: but to the westward, where the downs 
and woods of Raleigh closed in with those of Abbotsham, the blue was 
webbed and turfed with delicate white flakes ; iridescent spots, mark- 
ing the path by which the sun had sunk, showed all the colors of the 
dying dolphin ; and low on the horizon lay a long band of grassy green. 
But what was the sound which troubled Mrs. Leigh? None of them, 
with their merry hearts, and ears dulled with the din and bustle of the 


186 


Westward Ho I 

town, had heard it till that moment: and yet now — listen! It was 
dead calm. There was not a breath to stir a blade of grass. And yet 
the air was full of sound, a low deep roar which hovered over down and 
wood, salt-marsh and river, like the roll of a thousand wheels, the 
tramp of endless armies, or — what it was — the thunder of a mighty 
surge upon the boulders of the pebble ridge. 

“ The ridge is noisy to-night,” said Sir Richard. “ There has been 
wind somewhere.” 

“ There is wind now, where my boy is, God help him! ” said Mrs. 
Leigh : and all knew that she spoke truly. The spirit of the Atlantic 
storm had sent forward the token of his coming, in the smooth ground- 
swell which was heard inland, two miles away. To-morrow the peb- 
bles, which were now rattling down with each retreating wave, might 
be leaping to the ridge top, and hurled like round-shot far ashore upon 
the marsh by the force of the advancing wave, fleeing before the wrath 
of the western hurricane. 

“ God help my boy! ” said Mrs. Leigh again. 

“ God is as near him by sea as by land,” said good Sir Richard. 

“ True: but I am a lone mother; and one that has no heart just now 
but to go home and pray.” 

And so Mrs. Leigh went onward up the lane, and spent all that 
night in listening between her prayers to the thunder of the surge, till 
it was drowned, long ere the sun rose, in the thunder of the storm. 

And where is Amy as on this same Christmas afternoon? 

Amyas is sitting bare-headed in a boat’s stern in Smerwick bay, 
with the spray whistling through his curls, as he shouts cheerfully, — 

“ Pull, and with a will, my merry men all, and never mind shipping 
a sea. Cannon balls are a cargo that don’t spoil by taking salt- 
water.” 

His mother’s presage has been true enough. Christmas-eve has 
been the last of the still, dark, steaming nights of the early winter; 
and the western gale has been roaring for the last twelve hours upon 
the Irish coast. 

The short light of the winter day is fading fast. Behind him is a 
leaping line of billows lashed into mist by the tempest. Beside him 
green foam-fringed columns are rushing up the black rocks, and fall- 
ing again in a thousand cataracts of snow. Before him is the deep 
and sheltered bay: but it is not far up the bay that he and his can see; 
for some four miles out at sea begins a sloping roof of thick gray cloud, 
which stretches over their heads, and up and far away inland, cutting 


187 


His Christmas Da 1 

the cliffs off at mid-height, hiding all the Kerry mountains, and dark- 
ening the hollows of the distant firths into the blackness of night. 
And underneath that awful roof of whirling mist the storm is howling 
inland ever, sweeping before it the great foam-sponges, and the gray 
salt spray, till all the land is hazy, dim, and dun. Let it howl on! for 
there is more mist than ever salt spray made, flying before that gale; 
more thunder than ever sea-surge wakened echoing among the cliffs of 
Smerwick bay; along those sand-hills flash in the evening gloom red 
sparks which never came from heaven; for that fort, now christened by 
the invaders the Fort del Oro, where flaunts the hated golden flag of 
Spain, holds San Josepho and eight hundred of the foe; and but three 
nights ago, Amy as and Yeo, and the rest of Winter’s shrewdest hands, 
slung four culverins out of the Admiral’s main deck, and floated them 
ashore, and dragged them up to the battery among the sand-hills ; and 
now it shall be seen whether Spanish and Italian condottieri can hold 
their own on British ground against the men of Devon. 

Small blame to Amyas if he was thinking, not of his lonely mother 
at Burrough Court, but of those quick bright flashes on sand-hill and 
on fort, where Salvation Yeo was hurling the eighteen- pound shot 
with deadly aim, and watching with a cool and bitter smile of triumph, 
the flying of the sand, and the crashing of the gabions. Amyas and 
his party had been on board, at the risk of their lives, for a fresh supply" 
of shot; for Winter’s battery was out of ball, and had been firing 
stones for the last four hours, in default of better missiles. They ran 
the boat on shore through the surf, where a cove in the shore made land- 
ing possible, and almost careless whether she stove or not, scrambled 
over the sand-hills with each man his brace of shot slung across his 
shoulder: and Amyas, leaping into the trenches, shouted cheerfully to 
Salvation Yeo, 

“ More food for the bulldogs, Gunner, and plums for the Span- 
iards’ Christmas pudding! ” 

“ Don’t speak to a man at his business, Master Amyas. Five 
mortal times have I missed; but I will have that accursed Popish rag 
down, as I’m a sinner.” 

“Down with it then; nobody wants you to shoot crooked. Take 
good iron to it, and not footy paving-stones.” 

“ I believe, sir, that the foul fiend is there, a turning of my shot 
aside, I do. I thought I saw him once: but, thank heaven, here’s ball 
again. Ah, sir, if one could but cast a silver one! Now, stand by, 
men ! ” 


188 


Westward Ho ! 

And once again Yeo’s eighteen-pounder roared, and away. And, 
0 I 1 glory ! the great yellow flag of Spain, which streamed in the gale, 
lifted clean into the air, flagstaff and all, and then pitched wildly down 
headforemost, far to leeward. 

A hurrah from the sailors, answered by the soldiers of the opposite 
camp, shook the very cloud above them: but ere its echoes had died 
away, a tall officer leaped upon the parapet of the fort, with the fallen 
flag in his hand, and rearing it as well as he could upon his lance point, 
held it firmly against the gale, while the fallen flagstaff was raised 
again within. 

In a moment a dozen long bows were bent at the daring foeman: 
but Amyas behind shouted, — 

“Shame, lads! Stop, and let the gallant gentleman have due 
courtesy ! ” 

So they stopped, while Amyas, springing on the rampart of the 
battery, took off his hat, and bowed to the flag-holder, who, as soon as 
relieved of his charge, returned the bow courteously, and descended. 

It was by this time all but dark, and the firing began to slacken on 
all sides; Salvation and his brother gunners, having covered up their 
slaughtering tackle with tarpaulins, retired for the night, leaving 
Amyas, who had volunteered to take the watch till midnight ; and the 
rest of the force having got their scanty supper of biscuit (for pro- 
visions were running very short), lay down under arms among the 
sand-hills, and grumbled themselves to sleep. 

He had paced up and down in the gusty darkness for some hour or 
more, exchanging a passing word now and then with the sentinel, when 
two men entered the battery, chatting busily together. One was in 
complete armor ; the other wrapped in the plain short cloak of a man 
of pens and peace: but the talk of both was neither of sieges nor of 
sallies, catapult, bombard, nor culverin, but simply of English hex- 
ameters. 

And fancy not, gentle reader, that the two were therein fiddling 
while Rome was burning; for the commonweal of poetry and letters, 
in that same critical year 1580, was in far greater danger from those 
same hexameters, than the common woe of Ireland (as Raleigh called 
it) was from the Spaniards. 

Imitating. the classic metres, “ versifying,” as it was called in contra- 
distinction to rhyming, was becoming fast the fashion among the more 
learned. Stonyhurst and others had tried their hands at hexameter 
translations from the Latin and Greek epics, which seem to have been 


189 


His Christmas Da* 

doggerel enough ; and, ever and anon, some youthful wit broke out in 
iambics, sapphics, elegiacs, and what not, to the great detriment of the 
Queen’s English and her subjects’ ears. 

I know not whether Mr. William Webbe had yet given to the world 
any fragments of his precious hints for the “ Reformation of English 
poetry,” to the tune of his own “ Tityrus, happily thou liest tumbling 
under a beech-tree: ” but the Cambridge Malvolio, Gabriel Harvey, 
had succeeded in arguing Spenser, Dyer, Sidney, and probably Sid- 
ney’s sister, and the whole clique of beaux-esprits round them, into 
following his model of 

* ‘ What might I call this tree ? A laurel ? 0 bonny laurel ! 

Needes to thy bowes will I bowe this knee, and vail my bonetto; ” 

after snubbing the first book of “ that Elvish Queene,” which was then 
in manuscript, as a base declension from the classical to the romantic 
school. 

And now Spenser (perhaps in mere melancholy wilfulness and 
want of purpose, for he had just been jilted by a fair maid of Kent) 
was wasting his mighty genius upon doggerel which he fancied an- 
tique; and some piratical publisher (Bitter Tom Nash swears, and 
with likelihood, that Harvey did it himself) had just given to the 
world, — “ Three proper wittie and familiar Letters, lately past be- 
tween two University men, touching the Earthquake in April last, and 
our English reformed Versifying,” which had set all town wits a-buzz- 
ing like a swarm of flies, being none other than a correspondence 
between Spenser and Harvey, which was to prove to the world forever 
the correctness and melody of such lines as, 

“For like magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in show, 

In deede most frivolous, not a looke but Tuscanish always/ ’ 

Let them pass — Alma Mater has seen as bad hexameters since. 
But then the matter was serious. There is a story (I know not how 
true), that Spenser was half bullied into re-writing the “Fairy 
Queen ” in hexameters, had not Raleigh, a true romanticist, “ whose 
vein for ditty or amorous ode was most lofty, insolent, and passion- 
ate,” persuaded him to follow his better genius. The great dramatists 
had not yet arisen, to form completely that truly English school, of 
which Spenser, unconscious of his own vast powers, was laying the 
foundation. And, indeed, it was not till Daniel, twenty years after, 
in his admirable apology for rhyme, had smashed Mr. Campion and 


190 


Westward Ho ! 

his “eight several kinds of classical numbers,” that the matter was 
finally settled, and the English tongue left to go the road on which 
heaven had started it. So that we may excuse Raleigh’s answering 
somewhat waspish to some quotation of Spenser’s from the three 
letters of “ Immerito and G. H.” 

“ Tut, tut, Colin Clout, much learning has made thee mad. A good 
old fishwives’ ballad jingle is worth all your sapphics and trimeters, 
and ‘riff-raff thurlery bouncing.’ Hey? have I you there, old lad? 
Do you mind that precious verse? ” 

“ But, dear Wat, Homer and Virgil ” 

“ But, dear Ned, Petrarch and Ovid ” 

“ But, Wat, what have we that we do not owe to the ancients? ” 
“Ancients, quotha? Why, the legend of King Arthur, and Chevy 
Chase too, of which even your fellow-sinner Sidney cannot deny that 
every time he hears it even from a blind fiddler it stirs his heart like a 
trumpet-blast. Speak well of the bridge that carries you over, man! 
Did you find your Redcross Knight in Virgil, or such a dame as Una 
in old Ovid? No more than you did your Pater and Credo, you 
renegado baptized heathen, you ! ” 

“ Yet, surely, our younger and more barbarous taste must bow 

before divine antiquity, and imitate afar ” 

“As dottrels do fowlers. If Homer was blind, lad, why dost not 
poke out thine eye? Ay, this hexameter is of an ancient house, truly, 
Ned Spenser, and so is many a rogue: but he cannot make way on our 
rough English roads. He goes hopping and twitching in our lan- 
guage like a three-legged terrier over a pebble-bank, tumble and up 
again, rattle and crash.” 

“Nay, hear, now — 

‘ ‘ See ye the blindfolded pretty god that feathered archer, 

Of lovers’ miseries which maketh his bloody game ? 1 

True, the accent gapes in places, as I have often confessed to Harvey, 
but ” 

“ Harvey be hanged for a pedant, and the whole crew of versifiers, 
from Lord Dorset (but he, poor man, has been past hanging some 
time since) to yourself! Why delude you into playing Procrustes as 
he does with the Queen’s English, racking one word till its joints be 
pulled asunder, and squeezing the next all a-heap as the Inquisitors do 

‘Strange as it may seem, this distich is Spenser’s own; and the other hexameters are 
all authentic. 


191 


Hid Christmas 

heretics in their banca cava? Out upon him and you, and Sidney, and 
the whole kin. You have not made a verse among you, and never 
will, which is not as lame a gosling as Harvey’s own — 

1 Oh thou weathercocke, that stands on the top of Allhallows, 

Come thy ways down, if thou dar’st for thy crown, and take the wall on us . 7 

“ Hark, now ! There is our jmung giant comforting his soul with a 
ballad. You will hear rhyme and reason together here, now. He 
will not miscall ‘blind-folded,’ ‘ blind-fold-ed,’ I warrant; or make 
an ‘ of ’ and a ‘ which ’ and a ‘ his ’ carry a whole verse on their 
wretched little backs.” 

And as he spoke, Amyas, who bad been grumbling to himself some 
Christmas carol, broke out full-mouthed: — 

“As Joseph was a- walking 
He heard an angel sing — 

‘This night shall be the birth night 
Of Christ, our heavenly King. 

His birthbed shall be neither 
In housen nor in hall, 

Nor in the place of paradise, 

But in the oxen’s stall. 

He neither shall be rocked 
In silver nor in gold, 

But in the wooden manger 
That lieth on the mould. 

He neither shall be washen 
With white wine nor with red, 

But with the fair spring water 
That on you shall be shed. 

He neither shall be clothed 
In purple nor in pall, 

But in the fair white linen 
That usen babies all . 7 

As Joseph was a- walking 
Thus did the angel sing, 

And Mary’s Son at midnight 
Was born to be our King. 

Then be you glad, good people, 

At this time of the year ; 

And light you up your candles, 

For His star it shineth clear.” 



192 


Westward Ho ! 

“ There, Edmunde Classicaster,” said Raleigh, “ does not that 
simple strain go nearer to the heart of him who wrote 4 The Shep- 
herd’s Calendar/ than all artificial and outlandish 

‘Wote ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face?’ 

Why dost not answer, man? ” 

But Spenser was silent a while, and then, — 

“ Because I was thinking rather of the rhymer than the rhyme. 
Good heaven! how that brave lad shames me, singing here the hymns 
which his mother taught him, before the very muzzles of Spanish guns ; 
instead of bewailing unmanly, as I have done, the love which he held, 
I doubt not, as dear as I did even my Rosalind. This is his welcome 
to the winter’s storm; while I, who dream, forsooth, of heavenly in- 
spiration, can but see therein an image of mine own cowardly despair. 

‘Thou barren ground, whom Winter’s wrath has wasted, 

Art made a mirror to behold my plight . 9 1 

Pah! away with frosts, icicles, and tears, and sighs ” 

“And with hexameters and trimeters too, I hope,” interrupted 
Raleigh: “ and all the trickeries of self -pleasing sorrow.” 

“ 1 will set my heart to higher work, than barking at the hand 

which chastens me.” 

“ Wilt put the lad into the 4 Fairy Queen/ then, by my side? He 
deserves as good a place there, believe me, as ever a Guyon, or even as 
Lord Grey your ArthegalL Let us hail him. Hallo ! young chanti- 
cleer of Devon! Art not afraid of a chance shot, that thou crowes t so 
lustily upon thine own mixen? ” 

“ Cocks crow all night long at Christmas, Captain Raleigh, and so 
do I,” said Amyas’s cheerful voice; 44 but who’s there with you? ” 

“A penitent pupil of yours — Mr. Secretary Spenser.” 

“ Pupil of mine? ” said Amyas. 44 1 wish he’d teach me a little of 
his art ; I could fill up my time here with making verses.” 

44 And who would be your theme, fair sir? ” said Spenser. 

44 No 4 who ’ at all. I don’t want to make sonnets to blue eyes, nor 
black either: but if I could put down some of the things I saw in the 
Spice Islands ” 

44 Ah,” said Raleigh, “he would beat you out of Parnassus, Mr. 

l “The Shepherd’s Calendar.” 


193 


Hid Christmas 

Secretary. Remember, you may write about Fairyland, but he has 
seen it.” 

“And so have others,” said Spenser; “ it is not so far off from any 
one of us. Wherever is love and loyalty, great purposes, and lofty 
souls, even though in a hovel or a mine, there is Fairyland.” 

“ Then Fairyland should be here, friend; for you represent love, 
and Leigh loyalty; while, as for great purposes and lofty souls, who so 
fit to stand for them, as I, being (unless my enemies and my conscience 
are liars both) as ambitious and as proud as Lucifer’s own self? ” 

“Ah, Walter, Walter, why wilt always slander thyself thus? ” 

“ Slander? Tut. — I do but give the world a fair challenge, and tell 
it, ‘ There — you know the worst of me : come on and try a fall, for 
either you or I must down.’ Slander? Ask Leigh here, who has 
but known me a fortnight, whether I am not as vain as a peacock, as 
selfish as a fox, as imperious as a bona roba, and ready to make a cat’s 
paw of him or any man, if there be a chestnut in the fire: and yet the 
poor fool cannot help loving me, and running of my errands, and tak- 
ing all my schemes and my dreams for gospel ; and verily believes now, 
I think, that I shall be the man in the moon some day, and he my big 
dog.” 

“ Well,” said Amyas, half apologetically, “ if you are the cleverest 
man in the world what harm in my thinking so? ” 

“ Hearken to him, Edmund ! He will know better when he has out- 
grown this same callow trick of honesty, and learned of the great 
goddess Detraction how to show himself wiser than the wise, by point- 
ing out to the world the fool’s motley which peeps through the rents 
in the philosopher’s cloak. Go to, lad! slander thy equals, envy thy 
betters, pray for an eye which sees spots in every sun, and for a vul- 
ture’s nose to scent carrion in every rose-bed. If thy friend win a 
battle, show that he has needlessly thrown away his men; if he lose 
one, hint that he sold it; if he rise to a place, argue favor; if he fall 
from one, argue divine justice. Believe nothing, hope nothing, but 
endure all things, even to kicking, if aught may be got thereby; so 
shalt thou be clothed in purple and fine linen, and sit in kings’ palaces, 
and fare sumptuously every day.” 

“And wake with Dives in the torment,” said Amyas. “ Thank you 
for nothing, Captain.” 

“ Go to, Misanthropos,” said Spenser. “ Thou hast not yet tasted 
the sweets of this world’s comfits, and thou railest at them? ” 

“ The grapes are sour, lad.” 


194 


Westward Ho ! 

“And will be to the end,” said Amyas, “ if they come off such a 
devil’s tree as that. I really think you are out of your mind, Captain 
Raleigh, at times.” 

“ I wish I were; for it is a troublesome, hungry, windy mind as man 
ever was cursed withal. But come in, lad. We were sent from the 
Lord Deputy to bid thee to supper. There is a dainty lump of dead 
horse waiting for thee.” 

“ Send me some out, then,” said matter-of-fact Amyas. “And tell 
his Lordship that, with his good leave, I don’t stir from here till morn- 
ing, if I can keep awake. There is a stir in the fort, and I expect them 
out on us.” 

“Tut, man! their hearts are broken. We know it by their de- 
serters.” 

“ Seeing’s believing. I never trust runaway rogues. If they are 
false to their masters they’ll be false to us.” 

“ Well, go thy ways, old honesty; and Mr. Secretary shall give you 
a book to yourself in the ‘ Fairy Queen ’ — ‘ Sir Monoculus, or the 
Legend of Common Sense,’ eh, Edmund? ” 

“ Monoculus? ” 

“ Ay, Single-eye, my prince of word-coiners — won’t that fit? — And 
give him the Cyclop’s head for a device. Heigho! They may laugh 
that win. I am sick of this Irish work; were it not for the chance of 
advancement I’d sooner be driving a team of red Devons on Dartside; 
and now I am angry with the dear lad because he is not sick of it too. 
What a plague business has he to be paddling up and down, content- 
edly doing his duty, like any city watchman? It is an insult to the 
mighty aspirations of our nobler hearts, — eh, my would-be Ariosto? ” 

“Ah, Raleigh ! you can afford to confess yourself less than some, for 
you are greater than all. Go on and conquer, noble heart! But as 
for me, I sow the wind, and I suppose I shall reap the whirlwind.” 

“ Your harvest seems come already; what a blast that was! Hold 
on by me, Colin Clout, and I’ll hold on by thee. So! Don’t tread on 
that pikeman’s stomach, lest he take thee for a marauding Don, and 
with sudden dagger slit Colin’s pipe, and Colin’s weasand too.” 

And the two stumbled away into the darkness, leaving Amyas to 
stride up and down as before, puzzling his brains over Raleigh’s wild 
words and Spenser’s melancholy, till he came to the conclusion that 
there was some mysterious connection between cleverness and unhappi- 
ness, and thanking his stars that he was neither scholar, courtier, nor 
poet, said grace over his lump of horseflesh when it arrived, devoured 


195 


His Christmas 

it as if it had been venison, and then returned to his pacing up and 
down ; but this time in silence, for the night was drawing on, and there 
was no need to tell the Spaniards that any one was awake and 
watching. 

So he began to think about his mother, and how she might be spend- 
ing her Christmas; and then about Frank, and wondered at what 
grand Court festival he was assisting, amid bright lights and sweet 
music and gay ladies, and how he was dressed, and whether he thought 
of his brother there far away on the dark Atlantic shore; and then he 
said his prayers and his creed; and then he tried not to think of Rose 
Salt erne, and of course thought about her all the more. So on passed 
the dull hours, till it might be past eleven o’clock, and all lights were 
out in the battery and the shipping, and there was no sound of living 
thing but the monotonous tramp of the two sentinels beside him, and 
now and then a grunt from the party who slept under arms some 
twenty yards to the rear. 

So he paced to and fro, looking carefully out now and then over 
the strip of sand-hill which lay between him and the fort; but all was 
blank and black, and moreover it began to rain furiously. 

Suddenly he seemed to hear a rustle among the harsh sand-grass. 
True, the wind was whistling through it loudly enough: but that sound 
was not altogether like the wind. Then a soft sliding noise; some- 
thing had slipped down a bank, and brought the sand down after it. 
Amyas stopped, crouched down beside a gun, and laid his ear to the 
rampart, whereby he heard clearly, as he thought, the noise of ap- 
proaching feet; whether rabbits or Christians, he knew not: but he 
shrewdly guessed the latter. 

Now Amyas was of a sober and business-like turn, at least when he 
was not in a passion; and thinking within himself that if he made any 
noise, the enemy (whether four or two-legged) would retire, and all 
the sport be lost, he did not call to the two sentries, who were at the 
opposite ends of the battery; neither did he think it worth while to 
rouse the sleeping company, lest his ears should have deceived him, 
and the whole camp turn out to repulse the attack of a buck rabbit. 
So he crouched lower and lower beside the culverin, and was rewarded 
in a minute or two by hearing something gently deposited against the 
mouth of the embrasure, which, by the noise, should be a piece of 
timber. 

“ So far, so good,” said he to himself; “ when the scaling ladder is 
up, the soldier follows, I suppose. I can only humbly thank them for 



196 Westward Ho ! 

giving my embrasure the preference. There he comes ! I hear his feet 
scuffling.” 

He could hear plainly enough some one working himself into the 
mouth of the embrasure: but the plague was, that it was so dark that 
he could not see his hand between him and the sky, much less his foe 
at two yards off. However, he made a pretty fair guess as to the 
whereabouts, and, rising softly, discharged such a blow downward as 
would have split a yule log. A volley of sparks flew up from the 
hapless Spaniard’s armor, and a grunt issued from within it, which 
proved that, whether he was killed or not, the blow had not improved 
his respiration. 

Amyas felt for his head, seized it, dragged him in over the gun, 
sprang into the embrasure on his knees, felt for the top of the ladder, 
found it, hove it clean off and out, with four or five men on it, and then 
of course tumbled after it ten feet into the sand, roaring like a town 
bull to her Majesty’s liege subjects in general. 

Sailor-fashion, he had no armor on but a light morion and a cuirass, 
so he was not too much encumbered to prevent his springing to his legs 
instantly, and setting to work, cutting and foining right and left at 
every sound, for sight there was none. 

Battles (as soldiers know, and newspaper editors do not) are usu- 
ally fought, not as they ought to be fought, but as they can be fought; 
and while the literary man is laying down the law at his desk as to how 
many troops should be moved here, and what rivers should be crossed 
there, and where the cavalry should have been brought up, and when 
the flank should have been turned, the wretched man who has to do the 
work finds the matter settled for him by pestilence, want of shoes, 
empty stomachs, bad roads, heavy rains, hot suns, and a thousand 
other stern warriors who never show on paper. 

So with this skirmish; “ according to Cocker,” it ought to have been 
a very pretty one; for Hercules of Pisa, who planned the sortie, had 
arranged it all (being a very sans-appel in all military science) upon 
the best Italian precedents, and had brought against this very hapless 
battery a column of a hundred to attack dire.ctly in front, a company 
of fifty to turn the right flank, and a company of fifty to turn the left 
flank, with regulations, orders, passwords, countersigns, and what not ; 
so that if every man had had his rights (as seldom happens), Don 
Guzman Maria Magdalena de Soto, who commanded the sortie, ought 
to have taken the work out of hand, and annihilated all therein. But 
alas ! here stern fate interfered. They had chosen a dark night, as was 


197 


His Christmas 

politic ; they had waited till the moon was up, lest it should be too dark, 
as was politic likewise; but, just as they had started, on came a heavy 
squall of rain, through which seven moons would have given no light, 
and which washed out the plans of Hercules of Pisa as if they had been 
written on a schoolboy’s slate. The company who were to turn the 
left flank walked manfully down into the sea, and never found out 
where they were going till they were knee-deep in water. The com- 
pany who were to turn the right flank, bewildered by the utter dark- 
ness, turned their own flank so often, that tired of falling into rabbit- 
burrows and filling their mouths with sand, they halted and prayed to 
all the saints for a compass and lantern; while the centre body, who 
held straight on by a trackway to within fifty yards of the battery, so 
miscalculated that short distance, that while they thought the ditch two 
pikes’ length off, they fell into it one over the other, and of six scaling 
ladders, the only one which could be found was the very one which 
Amyas threw down again. After which the clouds broke, the wind 
shifted, and the moon shone out merrily. And so was the deep policy 
of Plercules of Pisa, on which hung the fate of Ireland and the 
Papacy, decided by a ten minutes’ squall. 

But where is Amyas? 

In the ditch, aware that the enemy is tumbling into it, but unable 
to find them; while the company above, finding it much too dark to 
attempt a counter sortie, have opened a smart fire of musketry and 
arrows on things in general, whereat the Spaniards are swearing like 
Spaniards (I need say no more), and the Italians spitting like ven- 
omous cats: while Amyas, not wishing to be riddled by friendly balls, 
has got his back against the foot of the rampart, and waits on Provi- 
dence. 

Suddenly the moon clears; and with one more fierce volley, the 
English sailors, seeing the confusion, leap down from the embrasures, 
and to it pell-mell. Whether this also was “according to Cocker,” 
I know not: but the sailor, then as now, is not susceptible of highly- 
finished drill. 

Amyas is now in his element, and so are the brave fellows at his 
heels; and there are ten breathless, furious minutes among the sand- 
hills; and then the trumpets blow a recall, and the sailors drop back 
again by twos and threes, and are helped up into the embrasures over 
many a dead and dying foe; while the guns of Fort del Oro open on 
them, and blaze away for half an hour without reply; and then all is 
still once more. And in the meanwhile, the sortie against the Dep- 



198 Westward Ho I 

uty’s camp has fared no better, and the victory of the night remains 
with the English. 

Twenty minutes after. Winter and the captains who were on shore 
were drying themselves round a peat-fire on the beach, and talking 
over the skirmish, when Will Cary asked — 

“ Where is Leigh? who has seen him? I am sadly afraid he has 
gone too far, and been slain.” 

“Slain? Never less, gentlemen!” replied the voice of the very 
person in question, as he stalked out of the darkness into the glare of 
the fire, and shot down from his shoulders into the midst of the ring, 
as he might a sack of corn, a huge dark body, which was gradually seen 
to be a man in rich armor ; who, being so shot down, lay quietly where 
he was dropped, with his feet (luckily for him mailed) in the fire. 

“ I say,” quoth Amyas, “ some of you had better take him up, if he 
is to be of any use. Unlace his helm. Will Cary.” 

“ Pull his feet out of the embers; I dare say he would have been glad 
enough to put us to the scarpines ; but that’s no reason we should put 
him to them.” 

As has been hinted, there was no love lost between Admiral Winter 
and Amyas; and Amyas might certainly have reported himself in a 
more ceremonious manner. So Winter, whom Amyas either had not 
seen, or had not chosen to see, asked him pretty sharply, “ What the 
plague he had to do with bringing dead men into camp? ” 

“ If he’s dead, it’s not my fault. He was alive enough when I 
started with him, and I kept him right end uppermost all the way; 
and what would you have more, sir? ” 

“ Mr. Leigh! ” said Winter, “ it behooves you to speak with some- 
what more courtesy, if not respect, to captains who are your elders 
and commanders.” 

“Ask your pardon, sir,” said the giant, as he stood in front of the 
fire with the rain streaming and smoking off his armor; “ but I was 
bred in a school where getting good service done was more esteemed 
than making fine speeches.” 

“ Whatsoever school you were trained in, sir,” said Winter, nettled 
at the hint about Drake, “ it does not seem to have been one in which 
you learned to obey orders. Why did you not come in when the recall 
was sounded? ” 

“ Because,” said Amyas, very coolly, “ in the first place, I did not 
hear it ; and in the next, in my school I was taught when I had once 
started not to come home empty-handed.” 


199 


Hid Christmas 

This was too pointed; and Winter sprang up with an oath — “ Do 
you mean to insult me, sir? ” 

“ I am sorry, sir, that you should take a compliment to Sir Francis 
Drake as an insult to yourself. I brought in this gentleman because 
I thought he might give you good information; if he dies meanwhile, 
the loss will be yours, or rather the Queen’s.” 

“ Help me, then,” said Cary, glad to create a diversion in Amyas’s 
favor, “ and we will bring him round; ” while Raleigh rose, and catch- 
ing Winter’s arm, drew him aside, and began talking earnestly. 

“ What a murrain have you, Leigh, to quarrel with Winter? ” asked 
two or three. 

“ I say, my reverend fathers and dear children, do get the Don’s 
talking tackle free again, and leave me and the Admiral to settle it 
our own way.” 

There was more than one captain sitting in the ring: but discipline, 
and the degrees of rank, were not so severely defined as now; and 
Amyas, as a “ gentleman adventurer,” was, on land, in a position very 
difficult to be settled, though at sea he was as liable to be hanged as 
any other person on board; and on the whole it was found expedient 
to patch the matter up. So Captain Raleigh returning, said that 
though Admiral Winter had doubtless taken umbrage at certain words 
of Mr. Leigh’s, yet that he had no doubt that Mr. Leigh meant noth- 
ing thereby but what was consistent with the profession of a soldier 
and a gentleman, and worthy both of himself and of the Admiral. 

From which proposition Amyas found it impossible to dissent; 
whereon Raleigh went back, and informed Winter that Leigh had 
freely retracted his words, and fully wiped off any imputation which 
Mr. Winter might conceive to have been put upon him, and so forth. 
So Winter returned, and Amyas said frankly enough, — 

“Admiral Winter, I hope, as a loyal soldier, that you will under- 
stand thus far; that naught which has passed to-night shall in any way 
prevent you finding me a forward and obedient servant to all your 
commands, be they what they may, and a supporter of your authority 
among the men, and honor against the foe, even with my life. For I 
should be ashamed if private differences should ever prejudice by a 
grain the public weal.” 

This was a great effort of oratory for Amyas; and he therefore, in 
order to be safe by following precedent, tried to talk as much as he 
could like Sir Richard Grenvile. Of course Winter could answer 
nothing to it, in spite of the plain hint of private differences, but that 


200 


Westward Ho ! 

he should not fail to show himself a captain worthy of so valiant and 
trusty a gentleman ; whereon the whole party turned their attention to 
the captive, who, thanks to Will Cary, was by this time sitting up, 
standing much in need of a handkerchief, and looking about him, hav- 
ing been unhelmed, in a confused and doleful manner. 

“ Take the gentleman to my tent,” said Winter, “ and let the 
surgeon see to him. Mr. Leigh, who is he? ” 

“An enemy, but whether Spaniard or Italian I know not; but he 
seemed somebody among them, I thought the captain of a company, 
lie and I cut at each other twice or thrice at first, and then lost each 
other; and after that I came on him among the sand-hills, trying to 
rally his men, and swearing like the mouth of the pit, whereby I guess 
him a Spaniard. But his men ran; so I brought him in.” 

“And how? ” asked Raleigh. “ Thou art giving us all the play but 
the murders and the marriages.” 

“ Wlw, I bid him yield, and he would not. Then I bid him run, and 
he would not. And it was too pitch-dark for fighting; so I took him 
by the ears, and shook the wind out of him, and so brought him 
in.” 

“ Shook the wind out of him? ” cried Cary, amid the roar of laughter 
which followed. “ Dost know thou hast nearly wrung his neck in 
two? His vizor was full of blood.” 

“ He should have run or yielded, then,” said Amyas; and getting 
up, slipped off to find some ale, and then to sleep comfortably in a dry 
burrow which he scratched out of a sand-bank. 

The next morning, as Amyas was discussing a scanty breakfast of 
biscuit (for provisions were running very short in camp) Raleigh came 
up to him. 

“ What, eating? That’s more than I have done to-day.” 

“Sit down, and share then.” 

“ Nay, lad, I did not come a-begging. I have set some of my 
rogues to dig rabbits ; but as I live, young Colbrand, you may thank 
your stars that you are alive to-day to eat. Poor young Cheek, — Sir 
J ohn Cheek, the grammarian’s son, — got his quittance last night by a 
Spanish pike, rushing headlong on, just as you did. But have you 
seen your prisoner? ” 

“ No; nor shall, while he is in Winter’s tent.” 

“ Why not then? What quarrel have you against the Admiral, 
friend Bobadil? Cannot you let Francis Drake fight his own battles, 
without thrusting your head in between them? ” 


201 


His Christmas 



“ Well, that is good! As if the quarrel was not just as much mine, 
and every man’s in the ship. Why, when he left Drake, he left us all, 
did he not? ” 

“And what if he did? Let bygones be bygones, is the rule of a 
Christian, and of a wise man too, Amyas. Here the man is, at least, 
safe home, in favor and in power; and a prudent youth will just hold 
his tongue, mumchance, and swim with the stream.” 

“But that’s just what makes me mad; to see this fellow, after 
deserting us there in unknown seas, win credit and rank at home here 
for being the first man who ever sailed back through the Straits. 
What had he to do with sailing back at all? As well make the fox a 
knight for being the first that ever jumped down a jakes to escape the 
hounds. The fiercer the flight the fouler the fear, say I.” 

“Amyas ! Amyas ! thou art a hard hitter, but a soft politician.” 

“ I am no politician, Captain Raleigh, nor ever wish to be. An 
honest man’s my friend, and a rogue’s my foe; and I’ll tell both as 
much as long as I breathe.” 

“And die a poor saint,” said Raleigh, laughing. “ But if Winter 
invites you to his tent himself, you won’t refuse to come? ” 

“ Why, no, considering his years and rank; but he knows too well 
to do that.” 

“ He knows too well not to do it,” said Raleigh, laughing as he 
walked away. And verily in half an hour came an invitation ex- 
tracted, of course, from the Admiral by Raleigh’s silver tongue, which 
Amyas could not but obey. 

“ We all owe you thanks for last night’s service, sir,” said Winter, 
who had for some good reasons changed his tone. “ Your prisoner is 
found to be a gentleman of birth and experience, and the leader of the 
assault last night. He has already told us more than we had hoped, 
for which also we are beholden to you; and, indeed, my Lord Grey has 
been asking for you already.” 

“ I have, young sir,” said a quiet and lofty voice; and Amyas saw 
limping from the inner tent the proud and stately figure of the stern 
Deputy, Lord Grey of Wilton, a brave and wise man, but with a 
naturally harsh temper, which had been soured still more by the wound 
which had crippled him, while yet a boy, at the battle of Leith. He 
owed that limp to Mary Queen of Scots; and he did not forget the 
debt. 

“ I have been asking for you; having heard from many, both of your 
last night’s prowess, and of your conduct and courage beyond the 


202 


Westward Ho ! 

promise of your years, displayed in that ever-memorable voyage, 
which may well be ranked with the deeds of the ancient Argonauts/’ 

Amyas bowed low; and the Lord Deputy went on, “ You will needs 
wish to see your prisoner. You will find him such a one as you need 
not be ashamed to have taken, and as need not be ashamed to have 
been taken by you: but here he is, and will, I doubt not, answer as 
much for himself. Know each other better, gentlemen both: last 
night was an ill one for making acquaintances. Don Guzman Maria 
Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto, know the hidalgo Amyas Leigh! ” 

As he spoke, the Spaniard came forward, still in his armor, all save 
his head, which was bound up in a handkerchief. 

He was an exceedingly tall and graceful personage, of that sangre 
azul which marked high Visi-gothic descent; golden-haired and fair- 
skinned, with hands as small and white as a woman’s; his lips were 
delicate, but thin, and compressed closely at the corners of the mouth ; 
and his pale blue eye had a glassy dulness. In spite of his beauty and 
his carriage, Amyas shrank from him instinctively; and yet he could 
not help holding out his hand in return, as the Spaniard holding out 
his, said languidly, in most sweet and sonorous Spanish, — 

“ I kiss his hands and feet. The Senor speaks, I am told, my native 
tongue? ” 

“ I have that honor.” 

“ Then accept in it (for I can better express myself therein than in 
English, though I am not altogether ignorant of that witty and learned 
language) the expression of my pleasure at having fallen into the 
hands of one so renowned in war and travel; and of one also,” he 
added, glancing at Amyas’s giant bulk, “ the vastness of whose 
strength, beyond that of common mortality, makes it no more shame 
for me to have been overpowered and carried away by him than if my 
captor had been a paladin of Charlemagne’s.” 

Honest Amyas bowed and stammered, a little thrown off his balance 
by the unexpected assurance and cool flattery of his prisoner; but he 
said, — 

“ If you are satisfied, illustrious Senor, I am bound to be so. I 
only trust, that in my hurry and the darkness, I have not hurt you 
unnecessarily.” 

The Don laughed a pretty little hollow laugh: “ No, kind Sefior, 
my head, I trust, will after a few days have become united to my 
shoulders; and, for the present, your company will make me forget 
any slight discomfort.” 


His Christmas Dy 2 os 

“ Pardon me, Sefior; but by this daylight I should have seen that 
armor before.” 

“ I doubt it not, Senor, as having been yourself also in the fore- 
front of the battle,” said the Spaniard, with a proud smile. 

“ If I am right, Senor, you are he who yesterday held up the stand- 
ard after it was shot down.” 

“ I do not deny that undeserved honor; and I have to thank the 
courtesy of you and your countrymen for having permitted me to do 
so with impunity.” 

“Ah, I heard of that brave feat,” said the Lord Deputy. “ You 
should consider yourself, Mr. Leigh, honored by being enabled to show 
courtesy to such a warrior.” 

How long this interchange of solemn compliments, of which Amyas 
was getting somewhat weary, would have gone on, I know not: but 
at that moment Raleigh entered hastily, — 

“ My Lord, they have hung out a white flag, and are calling for a 
parley ! ” 

The Spaniard turned pale, and felt for his sword, which was gone; 
and then, with a bitter laugh, murmured to himself, — “As I expected.” 

“ I am very sorry to hear it. Would to Heaven they had simply 
fought it out! ” said Lord Grey, half to himself; and then, “ Go, Cap- 
tain Raleigh, and answer them that (saving this gentleman’s presence) 
the laws of war forbid a parley with any who are leagued with rebels 
against their lawful sovereign.” 

“ But what if they wish to treat for this gentleman’s ransom? ” 

“ For their own, more likely: ” said the Spaniard; “ but tell them, 
on my part, Senor, that Don Guzman refuses to be ransomed; and 
will return to no camp where the commanding officer, unable to infect 
his captains with his own cowardice, dishonors them against their will.” 

“ You speak sharply, Senor,” said Winter, after Raleigh had gone 
out. 


“ I have reason, Senor Admiral, as you will find, I fear, ere long.” 

“ We shall have the honor of leaving you here, for the present, sir, 
as Admiral Winter’s guest,” said the Lord Deputy. 

“ But not my sword, it seems.” 

“ Pardon me, Senor; but no one has deprived you of your sword,” 
said Winter. 

“ I don’t wish to pain you, sir,” said Amyas, “ but I fear that we 
were both careless enough to leave it behind last night.” 

A flash passed over the Spaniard’s face, which disclosed terrible 


204 


Westward Ho I 

depths of fury and hatred beneath that quiet mask, as the summer 
lightning displays the black abysses of the thunderstorm; but like the 
summer lightning it passed, almost unseen; and blandly as ever, he 
answered, — 

“ I can forgive you for such a neglect, most valiant sir, more easily 
than I can forgive myself. Farewell, sir! One who has lost his 
sword is no fit company for you.” And as Amyas and the rest de- 
parted he plunged into the inner tent, stamping and writhing, gnaw- 
ing his hands with rage and shame. 

As Amyas came out on the battery, Yeo hailed him, — 

“ Master Amyas! Hillo, sir! For the love of Heaven tell me! ” 

“ What then? ” 

“ Is his Lordship staunch? Will he do the Lord’s work faithfully, 
root and branch: or will he spare the Amalekites? ” 

“ The latter, I think, old hip-and-thigh,” said Amyas, hurrying for- 
ward to hear the news from Raleigh, who appeared in sight once more. 

“ They ask to depart with bag and baggage,” said he, when he 
came up. 

“ God do so to me, and more also, if they carry away a straw! ” said 
Lord Grey. “ Make short work of it, sir! ” 

“ I do not know how that will be, my Lord; as I came up a captain 
shouted to me off the walls that there were mutineers; and, denying 
that he surrendered, would have pulled down the flag of truce, but the 
soldiers beat him off.” 

“A house divided against itself will not stand long, gentlemen. 
Tell them that I give no conditions. Let them lay down their arms, 
and trust in the Bishop of Rome who sent them hither, and may come 
to save them if he wants them. Gunners, if you see the white flag go 
down, open your fire instantly. Captain Raleigh, we need your coun- 
sel here. Mr. Cary, will you be my herald this time? ” 

“A better Protestant never went on a pleasanter errand, my Lord.” 

So Cary went, and then ensued an argument, as to what should be 
done with the prisoners in case of a surrender. 

I cannot tell whether my Lord Grey meant, by offering conditions 
which the Spaniards would not accept, to force them into fighting the 
quarrel out, and so save himself the responsibility of deciding on their 
fate; or whether his mere natural stubbornness, as well as his just in- 
dignation, drove him on too far to retract : but the council of war which 
followed was both a sad and a stormy one, and one which he had 
reason to regret to his dying day. What was to be done with the 


205 


His Christmas Da 1 

enemy? They already outnumbered the English; and some fifteen 
hundred of Desmond’s wild Irish hovered in the forests round, ready 
to side with the winning party, or even to attack the English at the 
least sign of vacillation or fear. They could not carry the Spaniards 
away with them, for they had neither shipping nor food, not even 
handcuffs enough for them; and as Mackworth told Winter when he 
proposed it, the only plan was for him to make San Josepho a present 
of his ships, and swim home himself as he could. To turn loose in Ire- 
land, as Captain Touch urged, on the other hand, seven hundred such 
monsters of lawlessness, cruelty, and lust, as Spanish and Italian con- 
dottieri were in those days, was as fatal to their own safety as cruel 
to the wretched Irish. All the captains, without exception, followed 
on the same side. “ What was to be done, then? ” asked Lord Grey, 
impatiently. “ Would they have him murder them all in cold blood? ” 
And for a while every man, knowing that it must come to that, and 
yet not daring to say it; till Sir Warham St. Leger, the Marshal of 
Munster, spoke out stoutly — “ Foreigners had been scoffing them too 
long and too truly with waging these Irish wars as if they meant to 
keep them alive, rather than end them. Mercy and faith to every 
Irishman who would show mercy and faith, was his motto; but to in- 
vaders, no mercy. Ireland was England’s vulnerable point; it might 
be some day her ruin; a terrible example must be made of those who 
dare to touch the sore. Rather pardon the Spaniards for landing in 
the Thames than in Ireland! ’’—till Lord Grey became much excited, 
and turning as a last hope to Raleigh, asked his opinion: but Raleigh’s 
silver tongue was that day not on the side of indulgence. He skilfully 
recapitulated the arguments of his fellow-captains, improving them 
as he went on, till each worthy soldier was surprised to find himself 
so much wiser a man than he had thought; and finished by one of his 
rapid and passionate perorations upon his favorite theme — the West 
Indian cruelties of the Spaniards, “ ... by which great tracts 
and fair countries are now utterly stripped of inhabitants by heavy 
bondage and torments unspeakable. Oh, witless Islanders! ” said he, 
apostrophizing the Irish; “would to heaven that you were here to 
listen to me! What other fate awaits you, if this viper, which you are 
so ready to take into your bosom, should be warmed to life, but to 
groan like the Indians, slaves to the Spaniard; but to perish like the 
Indians, by heavy burdens, cruel chains,^ plunder and ravishment; 
scourged, racked, roasted, stabbed, sawn in sunder, cast to feed the 
dogs, as simple and more righteous peoples have perished ere now by 


206 


Westward Ho S 

millions? And what else, I say, had been the fate of Ireland, had 
this invasion prospered, which God has now, by our weak hands, con- 
founded and brought to nought? Shall we then answer it, my Lord, 
either to our conscience, our God, or our Queen, if we shall set loose 
men (not one of whom, I warrant, but is stained with murder on mur- 
der) to go and fill up the cup of their iniquity among these silly sheep? 
Have not their native wolves, their barbarous chieftains, shorn, peeled, 
and slaughtered them enough already, but we must add this pack of 
foreign wolves to the number of their tormentors, and fit the Desmond 
with a bodyguard of seven, yea, seven hundred devils worse than him- 
self? Nay, rather let us do violence to our own human nature, and 
show ourselves in appearance rigorous, that we may be kind indeed; 
lest while we presume to be over-merciful to the guilty, we prove our- 
selves to be over-cruel to the innocent.” 

“ Captain Raleigh, Captain Raleigh,” said Lord Grey, “ the blood 
of these men be on your head ! ” 

“ It ill befits your Lordship,” answered Raleigh, “ to throw on your 
subordinates the blame of that which your reason approves as neces- 
sary.” 

“ I should have thought, sir, that one so noted for ambition as Cap- 
tain Raleigh would have been more careful of the favor of that Queen 
for whose smiles he is said to be so longing a competitor. If you have 
not yet been of her counsels, sir, I can tell you you are not likely to be. 
She will be furious when she hears of this cruelty.” 

Lord Grey had lost his temper : but Raleigh kept his, and answered 
quietly — 

“ Her Majesty shall at least not find me among the number of 
those who prefer her favor to her safety, and abuse to their own profit 
that over-tenderness and mercifulness of heart whichis the only blem- 
ish (and yet rather, like a mole on a fair cheek, but a new beauty) in 
her manifold perfections.” 

At this juncture Cary returned. 

“ My Lord,” said he, in some confusion, “ I have proposed your 
terms; but the captains still entreat for some mitigation; and, to tell 
you truth, one of them has insisted on accompanying me hither to 
plead his cause himself.” 

“ I will not see him, sir. Who is he? ” 

“ His name is Sebastian of Modena, my Lord.” 

“ Sebastian of Modena? What think you, gentlemen? May we 
make an exception in favor of so famous a soldier? ” 


207 


Hid Christmas Daj 

“ So villainous a cut-throat,” said Zouch to Raleigh, under his 
breath. 

All, however, were for speaking with so famous a man; and in came, 
in full armor, a short, bull-necked Italian, evidently of immense 
strength, of the true Caesar Borgia stamp. 

“ Will you please to be seated, sir,” said Lord Grey, coldly. 

“ I kiss your hands, most illustrious: but I do not sit in an enemy’s 
camp. Ha, my friend Zouch I How has your Signoria fared since 
we fought side by side at Lepanto? So you, too, are here, sitting in 
council on the hanging of me.” 

“ What is your errand, sir? Time is short,” said the Lord Deputy. 

“ Corpo di Bacco! It has been long enough all the morning, for 
my rascals have kept me and my friend the Colonel Hercules (whom 
you know, doubtless) prisoners in our tents at the pike’s point. My 
Lord Deputy, I have but a few words. I shall thank you to take 
every soldier in the fort, — Italian, Spaniard, and Irish, — and hang 
them up as high as Hainan, for a set of mutinous cowards, with the 
arch-traitor San Josepho at their head.” 

“ I am obliged to you for your offer, sir, and shall deliberate pres- 
ently as to whether I shall not accept it.” 

“ But as for us captains, really your Excellency must consider that 
we are gentlemen born, and give us either buena querra, as the Span- 
iards say, or a fair chance for life; and so to my business.” 

“ Stay, sir. Answer this first. Have you or yours any commission 
to show either from the King of Spain or any other potentate? ” 

“ Never a one but the cause of Heaven and our own swords. And 
with them, my Lord, we are ready to meet any gentlemen of your 
camp, man to man, with our swords only, half-way between your 
leaguer and ours; and I doubt not that your Lordship will see fair 
play. Will any gentleman accept so civil an offer? There sits a 
tall youth in that corner who would suit me very well. Will any fit 
my gallant comrades with half an hour’s punto and stoccado? ” 

There was a silence, all looking at the Lord Deputy, whose eyes 
were kindling in a very ugly way. 

“No answer? Then I must proceed to exhortation. So! Will 
that be sufficient? ” 

And walking composedly across the tent, the fearless ruffian quietly 
stooped down, and smote Amyas Leigh full in the face. 

Up sprang Amyas, heedless of all the august assembly, and with a 
single buffet felled him to the earth. 


208 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Excellent! ” said he, rising unabashed. “ I can always trust my 
instinct. I knew the moment I saw him that he was a cavalier worth 
letting blood. Now, sir, your sword and harness, and I am at your 
service outside! ” 

The solemn and sententious Englishmen were altogether taken 
aback by the Italian’s impudence; but Zouch settled the matter. 

“ Most noble Captain, will you be pleased to recollect a certain little 
occurrence at Messina, in the year 1575? For if you do not, I do; 
and beg to inform this gentleman that you are unworthy of his sword, 
and had you, unluckily for you, been an Englishman, would have 
found the fashions of our country so different from your own that you 
would have been then hanged, sir, and probably may be so still.” 

The Italian’s' sword flashed out in a moment: but Lord Grey in- 
terfered. 

“No fighting here, gentlemen. That may wait; and, what is more, 
shall wait till — Strike their swords down, Raleigh, Mackwortli! 
Strike their swords down! Colonel Sebastian, you will be pleased to 
return as you came, in safety, having lost nothing, as (I frankly tell 
you) you have gained nothing, by your wild bearing here. We shall 
proceed to deliberate on your fate.” 

“ I trust, my Lord,” said Amyas, “ that you will spare this brag- 
gart’s life, at least for a day or two. For in spite of Captain Zouch’s 
warning, I must have to do with him yet, or my cheek will rise up in 
judgment against me at the last day.” 

“ Well spoken, lad,” said the Colonel as he swung out. “ So ! worth 
a reprieve, by this sword, to have one more rapier-rattle before the 
gallows! Then I take back no further answer, my Lord Deputy? 
Not even our swords, our virgin blades, Signor, the soldier’s cherished 
bride? Shall we go forth weeping widowers, and leave to strange 
embrace the lovely steel?” 

“ None, sir, by heaven! ” said he, waxing wroth. “ Do you come 
hither, pirates as you are, to dictate terms upon a foreign soil? Is it 
not enough to have set up here the Spanish flag, and claimed the land 
of Ireland as the Pope’s gift to the Spaniard; violated the laws of 
nations, and the solemn treaties of princes, under color of a mad 
superstition? ” 

“ Superstition, my Lord? Nothing less. Believe a philosopher 
who has not said a pater or an ave for seven years past at least. Quod 
tango credo , is my motto; and though I am bound to say, under pain 
of the Inquisition, that the most holy Father the Pope has given this 


209 


leite Christmas 



land of Ireland to his most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, 
Queen Elizabeth having forfeited her title to it by heresy, — why, my 
Lord, I believe it as little as you do. I believe that Ireland would 
have been mine, if I had won it; I believe religiously that it is not 
mine, now I have lost it. What is, is, and a fig for priests ; to-day to 
thee, to-morrow to me. Addio,” — and out he swung. 

“ There goes a most gallant rascal,” said the Lord Deputy. 

“And a most rascally gallant,” said Zouch. “ The murder of his 
own page, of which I gave him a remembrancer, is among the least 
of his sins.” 

“And now, Captain Raleigh,” said Lord Grey, “ as you have been 
so earnest in preaching this butchery, I have a right to ask none but 
you to practise it.” 

Raleigh bit his lip, and replied by the “ quip courteous,” — 

“ I am at least a man, my Lord, who thinks it shame to allow others 
to do that which I dare not do myself.” 

Lord Grey might probably have returned “ the countercheck 
quarrelsome,” had not Mackworth risen; — 

“And I, my Lord, being, in that matter at least, one of Captain 
Raleigh’s kidney, will just go with him to see that he takes no harm 
by being bold enough to carry out an ugly business, and serving these 
rascals as their countrymen served Mr. Oxenham.” 

“ I bid you good-morning, then, gentlemen, though I cannot bid 
you Godspeed,” said Lord Grey; and sitting down again, covered his 
face with his hands, and, to the astonishment of all bystanders, burst, 
say the chroniclers, into tears. 

Amyas followed Raleigh out. The latter was pale, but determined, 
and very wroth against the Deputy. 

“ Does the man take me for a hangman,” said he, “ that he speaks 
to me thus? But such is the way of the great. If you neglect your 
duty, they haul you over the coals; if you do it, you must do it on your 
own responsibility. Farewell, Amyas; you will not shrink from me 
as a butcher when I return? ” 

“ God forbid! But how will you do it? ” 

“ March one company in, and drive them forth, and let the other 
cut them down as they come out. — Pah! ” 

* * * * * * * 


It was done. Right or wrong, it was done. The shrieks and curses 
had died away, and the Fort del Oro was a red shambles, which the 
soldiers were trying to cover from the sight of heaven and earth, by 


210 


Westward* Ho ! 

dragging the bodies into the ditch, and covering them with the ruins 
of the rampart; while the Irish, who had beheld from the woods that 
awful warning, fled trembling into the deepest recesses of the forest. 
It was done; and it never needed to be done again. The hint was 
severe, but it was sufficient. Many years passed before a Spaniard set 
foot again in Ireland. 

The Spanish and Italian officers were spared, and Amyas had Don 
Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto duly adjudged to him, 
as his prize by right of war. He was, of course, ready enough to fight 
Sebastian of Modena: but Lord Grey forbade the duel: blood enough 
had been shed already. The next question was, where to bestow Don 
Guzman till his ransom should arrive; and as Amyas could not well 
deliver the gallant Don into the safe custody of Mrs. Leigh at Bur- 
rough, and still less into that of Frank at Court, he was fain to write 
to Sir Richard Grenvile, and ask his advice, and in the meanwhile keep 
the Spaniard with him upon parole, which he frankly gave, — saying 
that as for running away, he had nowhere to run to; and as for join- 
ing the Irish he had no mind to turn pig; and Amyas found him, as 
shall be hereafter told, pleasant company enough. But one morning 
Raleigh entered, — 

“ I have done you a good turn, Leigh, if you think it one. I have 
talked St. Leger into making you my lieutenant, and giving you the 
custody of a right pleasant hermitage — some castle Shackatory or 
other in the midst of a big bog, where time will run swift and smooth 
with you, between hunting wild Irish, snaring snipes, and drinking 
yourself drunk with usquebaugh over a turf fire.” 

“ I’ll go,” quoth Amyas; “ anything for work.” So he went and 
took possession of his lieutenancy and his black robber tower, and 
there passed the rest of the winter, fighting or hunting all day, and 
chatting and reading all the evening with Senor Don Guzman, who, 
like a good soldier of fortune, made himself thoroughly at home, and 
a general favorite with the soldiers. 

At first, indeed, his Spanish pride and stateliness, and Amyas’s 
English taciturnity, kept the two apart somewhat; but they soon be- 
gan, if not to trust at least to like each other; and Don Guzman told 
Amyas, bit by bit, who he was, of what an ancient house, and of what 
a poor one; and laughed over the very small chance of his ransom being 
raised, and the certainty that, at least, it could not come for a couple 
of years, seeing that the only De Soto who had a penny to spare was 
a fat old dean at St. Yago de Leon, in the Caraccas, at which place 


211 


His Christmas Da 

Don Guzman had been born. This of course led to much talk about 
the West Indies, and the Don was as much interested to find that 
Amyas had been one of Drake’s world-famous crew, as Amyas was to 
find that his captive was the grandson of none other than that most 
terrible of man-hunters, Don Ferdinando de Soto, the conqueror of 
Florida, of whom Amyas had read many a time in Las Casas, “ as the 
captain of tyrants, the notoriousest and most experimented amongst 
them that have done the most hurts, mischiefs, and destructions in 
many realms.” And often enough his blood boiled, and he had much 
ado to recollect that the speaker was his guest, as Don Guzman chatted 
away about his grandfather’s hunts of innocent women and children, 
murders of caciques, and burnings alive of guides, " pour encourager 
les autres ” without, seemingly, the least feeling that the victims were 
human beings or subjects for human pity; anything, in short, but 
heathen dogs, enemies of God, servants of the devil, to be used by the 
Christian when he needed, and when not needed killed down as cum- 
berers of the ground. But Don Guzman was a most finished gentle- 
man nevertheless ; and told many a good story of the Indies, and told 
it well; and over and above his stories, he had among his baggage two 
books, — the one Antonio Galvano’s “ Discoveries of the World,” a 
mine of winter evening amusement to Amyas ; and the other, a manu- 
script book, which, perhaps, it had been well for Amyas had he never 
seen. For it was none other than a sort of rough journal which Don 
Guzman had kept as a lad, when he went down with the Adelantado 
Gonzales Ximenes de Casada, from Peru to the River of Amazons, to 
look for the golden country of El Dorado, and the city of Manoa, 
which stands in the midst of the White Lake, and equals or surpasses 
in glory even the palace of the Inca Huaynacapac; “ all the vessels 
of whose house and kitchen are of gold and silver, and in his wardrobe 
statues of gold which seemed giants, and figures in proportion and 
bigness of all the beasts, birds, trees, and herbs of the earth, and the 
fishes of the water; and ropes, budgets, chests, and troughs of gold; 
yea, and a garden of pleasure in an Island near Puna, where they went 
to recreate themselves when they would take the air of the sea, which 
had all kind of garden herbs, flowers, and trees of gold and silver of 
an invention and magnificence till then never seen.” 

Now the greater part of this treasure (and be it remembered that 
these wonders were hardly exaggerated, and that there were many 
men alive then who had beheld them, as they had worse things, “ with 
their corporal and mortal eyes”) was hidden by the Indians when 


212 


Westward H© I 

Pizarro conquered Peru and slew Atahuallpa, son of Huaynacapac; 
at whose death, it was said, one of the Inca’s younger brothers fled out 
of Peru, and taking with him a great army, vanquished all that tract 
which lieth between the great Rivers of Amazons and Earaquan, other- 
wise called Maranon and Orenoque. 

There he sits to this day, beside the golden lake, in the golden city 
which is in breadth a three days’ journey, covered, he and his court, 
with gold dust from head to foot, waiting for the fulfilment of the 
ancient prophecy which was written in the temple of Caxamarca, 
where his ancestors worshiped of old ; that heroes shall come out of the 
West, and lead him back across the forests to the kingdom of Peru, 
and restore him to the glory of his forefathers. 

Golden phantom! so possible, so probable, to imaginations which 
were yet reeling before the actual and veritable prodigies of Peru, 
Mexico, and the East Indies. Golden phantom! which has cost al- 
i ready the lives of thousands, and shall yet cost more; from Diego de 
Ordas, and Juan Corteso, and many another, who went forth on the 
quest by the Andes, and by the Orinoco, and by the Amazons ; Antonio 
Sedenno, with his ghastly caravan of manacled Indians, “ on whose 
dead carcasses the tigers being fleshed, assaulted the Spaniards ; ” 
Augustine Delgado, who 44 came to a cacique, who entertained him 
with all kindness, and gave him beside much gold and slaves, three 
nymphs very beautiful, which bare the names of three provinces, 
Guanba, Gotoguane, and Maiarare. To requite which manifold 
courtesies, he carried off, not only all the gold, but all the Indians he 
could seize, and took them in irons to Cubagua, and sold them for 
slaves; after which, Delgado was shot in the eye by an Indian, of 
which hurt he died; ” Pedro d’Orsua, who found the cinnamon forests 
of Loxas, 44 whom his men murdered, and afterward beheaded Lady 
Anes his wife, who forsook not her lord in all his travels unto death,” 
and many another, who has vanished with valiant comrades at his 
back into the green gulfs of the primaeval forests, never to emerge 
again. Golden phantom ! man-devouring, whose maw is never satiate 
with souls of heroes; fatal to Spain, more fatal still to England upon 
that shameful day, when the last of Elizabeth’s heroes shall lay down 
his head upon the block, nominally for having believed what all around 
him believed likewise till they found it expedient to deny it in order 
to curry favor with the crowned cur who betrayed him, really because 
he alone dared to make one last protest in behalf of liberty and 
Protestantism against the incoming night of tyranny and superstition. 


213 


that manuscript, 

that he was laying a snare for the life of the man whom, next to Drake 
and Grenvile, he most admired on earth. 

But Don Guzman, on the other hand, seemed to have an instinct 
that that book might be a fatal gift to his captor; for one day, ere 
Amyas had looked into it, he began questioning the Don about El 
Dorado. Whereon Don Guzman replied with one of those smiles of 
his, which (as Amyas said afterward) was so abominably like a sneer 
that he had often hard work to keep his hands off the man — 

“Ah! You have been eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, 
Senor? Well; if you have any ambition to follow many another 
brave captain to the pit, I know no shorter or easier path than is con- 
tained in that little book.” 

“I have never opened your book,” said Amyas; “your private 
manuscripts are no concern of mine: but my man who recovered your 
baggage read part of it, knowing no better; and now you are at liberty 
to tell me as little as you like.” 

The “ man,” it should be said, was none other than Salvation Yeo, 
who had attached himself by this time inseparably to Amyas, in quality 
of body-guard; and, as was common enough in those days, had turned 
soldier for the nonce, and taken under his patronage two or three rusty 
bases (swivels) and falconets (four-pounders), which grinned harm- 
lessly enough from the tower top across the cheerful expanse of bog. 

Amyas once asked him, how he reconciled this Irish sojourn with his 
vow to find his little maid? Yeo shook his head. 

“ I can’t tell, sir; but there’s something that makes me always to 
think of you when I think of her; and that’s often enough, the Lord 
knows. Whether it is that I ben’t to find the dear without your help; 
or whether it is your pleasant face puts me in mind of hers ; or what, I 
can’t tell ; but don’t you part me from you, sir, for I’m like Ruth, and 
where you lodge I lodge; and where you go I go; and where you die — 
though I shall die many a year first — there I’ll die, I hope and trust; 
for I can’t abear you out of my sight; and that’s the truth thereof.” 

So Yeo remained with Amyas, while Cary went elsewhere with Sir 
Warham St. Leger, and the two friends met seldom for many months; 
so that Amyas’s only companion was Don Guzman, who, as he grew 
more familiar, and more careless about what he said and did in his 
captor’s presence, often puzzled and scandalized him by his wayward- 
ness. Fits of deep melancholy alternated with bursts of Spanish 
boastfulness, utterly astonishing to the modest and sober-minded 


His Christmas Day* 

Little thought Amyas, as he devoured the pages of 


214 


Westward Ho ! 

Englishman, who would often have fancied him inspired by usque- 
baugh, had he not had ocular proof of his extreme abstemiousness. 

“ Miserable? ” said he, one night in one of these fits. “And have 
I not a right to be miserable? — Why should I not curse the virgin and 
all the saints, and die? I have not a friend, not a ducat on earth; not 
even a sword — hell and the furies! It was my all: the only bequest 
I ever had from my father, and I lived by it and earned by it. Two 
years ago I had as pretty a sum of gold as cavalier could wish — and 
now ! ” — 

“ What is become of it, then? I cannot hear that our men plun- 
dered you of any.” 

“ Your men? No, Senor! What fifty men dared not have done, 
one woman did! a painted, patched, fucused, periwigged, bolstered, 
Charybdis, cannibal, Megsera, Lamia! Why did I ever go near that 
cursed Naples, the common sewer of Europe? whose women, I be- 
lieve, would be swallowed up by Vesuvius to-morrow, if it were not 
that Belphegor is afraid of their making the pit itself too hot to hold 
him. Well, sir, she had all of mine and more; and when all was gone 
in wine and dice, woodcocks’ brains and ortolans’ tongues, I met the 
witch walking with another man. I had a sword and a dagger; I 
gave him the first (though the dog fought well enough, to give him 
his due), and her the second; left them lying across each other, and 
fled for my life: — and here I am! after twenty years of fighting, from 
the Levant to the Orellana — for I began ere I had a hair on my chin — 
and this is the end! — No, it is not! I’ll have that El Dorado yet! the 
Adelantado made Berreo, when he gave him his daughter, swear that 
he would hunt for it, through life and death. — We’ll see who finds it 
first, he or I. He’s a bungler; Orsua was a bungler — Pooh! Cortes 
and Pizarro? we’ll see whether there are not as good Castilians as they 
left still. I can do it, Senor. I know a track, a plan ; over the Llanos 
is the road; and I’ll be Emperor of Manoa yet — possess the jewels of 
all the Incas; and gold, gold! Pizarro was a beggar to what I 
will be! ” 

“ Conceive, sir,” he broke forth during another of these peacock 
fits, as Amvas and he were riding along the hillside; “ conceive! with 
forty chosen cavaliers (what need of more?) I present myself before 
the golden king, trembling amid his myriad guards at the new miracle 
of the mailed centaurs of the West; and without dismounting, I ap- 
proach his throne, lift the crucifix which hangs around my neck, and 
pressing it to my lips, present it for the adoration of the idolater, and 


215 


HiS Christmas Daj 

give him his alternative; that which Gayferos and the Cid, my an- 
cestors, offered the Soldan and the Moor — baptism or death! He 
hesitates; perhaps smiles scornfully upon my little band; I answer 
him by deeds, as Don Ferdinando, my illustrious grandfather, an- 
swered Atahuallpa at Peru, in sight of all his court and camp/’ 

“With your lance-point, as Gayferos did the Soldan? ” asked 
Amyas, amused. 

“ No, sir; persuasion first, for the salvation of a soul is at stake. 
Not with the lance-point, but the spur, sir, thus! ” — 

And striking his heels into his horse’s flanks, he darted off at full 
speed. 

“The Spanish traitor!” shouted Yeo. “He’s going to escape! 
Shall we shoot, sir? Shall we shoot? ” 

“For heaven’s sake, no!” said Amyas, looking somewhat blank, 
nevertheless, for he much doubted whether the whole was not a ruse 
on the part of the Spaniard, and he knew how impossible it was for 
his fifteen stone of flesh to give chase to the Spaniard’s twelve. But 
he was soon reassured; the Spaniard wheeled round toward him, and 
began to put the rough hackney through all the paces of the manege 
with a grace and skill which won applause from the beholders. 

“ Thus! ” he shouted waving his hand to Amyas, between his cur- 
vets and caracoles, “ did my illustrious grandfather exhibit to the 
Paynim emperor the prowess of a Castilian cavalier! Thus! — and 
thus ! — and thus, at last, he dashed up to his very feet, as I to yours, 
and bespattering that unbaptized visage with his Christian bridlefoam, 
pulled up his charger on his haunches, thus! ” — 

And (as was to be expected from a blown Irish garron on a peaty 
Irish hillside) down went the hapless hackney on his tail, away went 
his heels a yard in front of him, and ere Don Guzman could “ avoid 
his selle,” horse and man rolled over into a neighboring bog-hole. 

“After pride comes a fall,” quoth Yeo with unmoved visage as he 
lugged him out. 

“And what would you do with the Emperor at last? ” asked Amyas 
when the Don had been scrubbed somewhat clean with a bunch of 
rushes. “ Kill him, as your grandfather did Atahuallpa? ” 

“ My grandfather,” answered the Spaniard indignantly, “ was one 
of those, who to their eternal honor, protested to the last against that 
most cruel and unknightly massacre. He could be terrible to the 
heathen; but he kept his plighted word, sir, and taught me to keep 
mine, as you have seen to-day.” 


216 


Westward Ho '. 

“ I have, Seilor,” said Aniyas. “ You might have given us the slip 
easily enough just now, and did not. Pardon me if I have offended 
you.” 

The Spaniard (who, after all, was cross principally with himself 
and the “ unlucky mare’s son,” as the old romances have it, which had 
played him so scurvy a trick) was all smiles again forthwith; and 
Amyas, as they chatted on, could not help asking him next — 

“ I wonder why you are so frank about your own intentions to an 
enemy like me, who will surely forestal you if he can.” 

“ Sir, a Spaniard needs no concealment, and fears no rivalry. He 
is the soldier of the cross, and in it he conquers, like Constantine of old. 
Not that you English are not very heroes: but you have not, sir, and 
you cannot have, who have forsworn our Lady and the choir of saints, 
the same divine protection, the same celestial mission, which enables 
the Catholic cavalier single-handed to chase a thousand Paynims.” 

And Don Guzman crossed himself devoutly, and muttered half a 
dozen Ave Marias in succession, while Amyas rode silently by his side, 
utterly puzzled at this strange compound of shrewdness with fanati- 
cism, of perfect high-breeding with a boastfulness which in an English- 
man would have been the sure mark of vulgarity. 

At last came a letter from Sir Richard Grenvile, complimenting 
Amyas on his success and promotion, bearing a long and courtly 
message to Don Guzman (whom Grenvile had known when he was in 
the Mediterranean, at the battle of Lepanto), and offering to receive 
him as his own guest at Bideford, till his ransom should arrive; a 
proposition which the Spaniard (who of course was getting sufficiently 
tired of the Irish bogs) could not but gladly accept; and one of Win- 
ter’s ships, returning to England in the spring of 1581, delivered duly 
at the quay of Bideford the body of Don Guzman Maria Magdalena. 
Raleigh, after forming for that summer one of the triumvirate by 
which Munster was governed after Ormond’s departure, at last got his 
wish, and departed for England and the court; and Amyas was left 
alone with the snipes and yellow mantles for two more weary years. 



CHAPTER X. 

How foe Mayor of Biaeford baited bis 
hook with his own flesh . 

“And therewith he blent, and cried ha! 

As though he had been stricken to the harte.” 

Palamon and Arcite. 

So it befell to Chaucer’s knight in prison; and so it befell also to 
Don Guzman; and it befell on this wise. 

He settled down quietly enough at Bideford on his parole, in better 
quarters than he had occupied for many a day, and took things as 
they came, like a true soldier of fortune; till, after he had been with 
Grenvile hardly a month, old Salterne the Mayor came to supper. 

Now Don Guzman, however much he might be puzzled at first at 
our strange English ways of asking burghers and such low-bred folk 
to eat and drink above the salt, in the company of noble persons, was 
quite gentleman enough to know that Richard Grenvile was gentle- 
man enough to do only what was correct, and according to the customs 
and proprieties. So after shrugging the shoulders of his spirit, he 
submitted to eat and drink at the same board with a tradesman who 
sat at a desk, and made up ledgers, and took apprentices ; and hearing 
him talk with Grenvile neither unwisely nor in a vulgar fashion, actu- 
ally before the evening was out condescended to exchange words with 
him himself. Whereon he found him a very prudent and courteous 
person, quite aware of the Spaniard’s superior rank, and making him 
feel in every sentence, that he was aware thereof ; and yet holding his 
own opinion, and asserting his own rights as a wise elder, in a fashion 
which the Spaniard had only seen before among the merchant princes 
of Genoa and V enice. 

At the end of supper, Salterne asked Grenvile to do his humble roof 
the honor, etc., etc., of supping with him the next evening, and then 
turning to the Don, said quite frankly, that he knew how great a con- 
descension it would be on the part of a nobleman of Spain to sit at the 
board of a simple merchant: but that if the Spaniard deigned to do 
him such a favor, he would find that the cheer was fit enough for any 


218 


Westward. Ho ! 

rank, whatsoever the company might be; which invitation Don Guz- 
man, being on the whole glad enough of anything to amuse him, gra- 
ciously condescended to accept, and gained thereby an excellent 
supper, and, if he had chosen to drink it, much good wine. 

Now Mr. Salterne was, of course, as a wise merchant, as ready as 
any man for an adventure to foreign parts, as was afterward proved 
by his great exertions in the settlement of Virginia; and he was, there- 
fore, equally ready to rack the brains of any guest whom he suspected 
of knowing anything concerning strange lands ; and so he thought no 
shame, first to try to loose his guest’s tongue by much good sack, and 
next to ask him prudent and well-concocted questions concerning the 
Spanish Main, Peru, the Moluccas, China, the Indies, and all parts. 

The first of which schemes failed; for the Spaniard was as abste- 
mious as any monk, and drank little but water; the second succeeded 
not over well, for the Spaniard was as cunning as any fox, and an- 
swered little but wind. 

In the midst of which tongue-fence in came the Rose of Torridge, 
looking as beautiful as usual; and hearing what they were upon, added, 
artlessly enough, her questions to her father’s: to her Don Guzman 
could not but answer; and without revealing any very important com- 
mercial secrets, gave his host and his host’s daughter a very amusing 
evening. 

Now little Eros, though spirits like Frank Leigh’s may choose to 
call him (as, perhaps, he really is to them) the eldest of the gods, and 
the son of Jove and Venus, yet is reported by other equally good 
authorities, as Burton has set forth in his 4 ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,” 
to be after all only the child of idleness and fulness of bread. To 
which scandalous calumny the thoughts of Don Guzman’s heart gave 
at least a certain color; for he being idle (as captives needs must be), 
and also full of bread (for Sir Richard kept a very good table), had 
already looked round for mere amusement’s sake after some one with 
whom to fall in love. Lady Grenvile, as nearest, was, I blush to say, 
thought of first: but the Spaniard was a man of honor, and Sir Rich- 
ard his host; so he put away from his mind (with a self-denial on which 
he plumed himself much) the pleasure of a chase equally exciting to 
his pride and his love of danger. As for the sinfulness of the said 
chase, he of course thought no more of that than other southern Euro- 
peans did then, or than (I blush again to have to say it) the English 
did afterward in the days of the Stuarts. Nevertheless, he had put 
Lady Grenvile out of his mind; and so left room to take Rose Salterne 


219 


The Mayor of Bideford 

into it, not with any distinct purpose of wronging her: but, as I said 
before, half to amuse himself, and half, too, because he could not help 
it. For there was an innocent freshness about the Rose of Torridge, 
fond as she was of being admired, which was new to him and most 
attractive. 44 The train of the peacock,” as he said to himself, 44 and 
yet the heart of the dove,” made so charming a combination, that if he 
could have persuaded her to love no one but him, perhaps he might 
become fool enough to love no one but her. And at that thought he 
was seized with a very panic of prudence, and resolved to keep out of 
her way; and yet the days ran slowly, and Lady Grenvile when at 
home was stupid enough to talk and think about nothing but her hus- 
band ; and when she went to Stow, and left the Don alone in one corner 
of the great house at Bideford, what could he do but lounge down to 
the butt-gardens to show off his fine black cloak and fine black feather, 
see the shooting, have a game or two of rackets with the youngsters, a 
game or two of bowls with the elders, and get himself invited home to 
supper by Mr. Salterne? 

And there, of course, he had it all his own way, and ruled the roost 
(which he was fond enough of doing) right royally, not only on ac- 
count of his rank, but because he had something to say worth hearing, 
as a traveled man. For those times were the day-dawn of English 
commerce; and not a merchant in Bideford, or in all England, but had 
his imagination all on fire with projects of discoveries, companies, 
privileges, patents, and settlements; with gallant rivalry of the brave 
adventures of Sir Edward Osborne and his new London Company of 
Turkey Merchants; with the privileges just granted by the Sultan 
Murad Khan to the English; with the worthy Levant voyages of 
Roger Bodenham in the great bark Auclier , and of John Fox, and 
Lawrence Aldersey, and John Rule; and with hopes from the vast 
door for Mediterranean trade, which the crushing of the Venetian 
power at Famagusta in Cyprus, and the alliance made between Eliza- 
beth and the Grand Turk, had just thrown open. So not a word 
could fall from the Spaniard about the Mediterranean but took root 
at once in right fertile soil. Besides, Master Edmund Hogan had 
been on a successful embassy to the Emperor of Morocco; John Haw- 
kins and George Fenner had been to Guinea (and with the latter Mr. 
Walter Wren, a Bideford man), and had traded there for musk and 
civet, gold and grain; and African news was becoming almost as valu- 
able as West Indian. Moreover, but two months before had gone from 
London Captain Hare in the bark Minion , for Brazil, and a company 


220 


Westward Ho ! 

of adventurers with him, with Sheffield hardware, and “ Devonshire 
and northern kersies,” hollands and “ Manchester cottons,” for there 
was a great opening for English goods by the help of one J ohn Whit- 
hall, who had married a Spanish heiress, and had an ingenio and slaves 
in Santos. (Don’t smile, reader, or despise the day of small things, 
and those who sowed the seed whereof you reap the mighty harvest.) 
In the meanwhile, Drake had proved not merely the possibility of 
plundering the American coasts, but of establishing an East Indian 
trade; Frobisher and Davis, worthy forefathers of our Parrys and 
Franklins, had begun to bore their way upward through the northern 
ice, in search of a passage to China which should avoid the dangers of 
the Spanish seas; and Anthony Jenkinson, not the least of English 
travelers, had, in six-and-twenty years of travel in behalf of the Mus- 
covite Company, penetrated into not merely Russia and the Levant, 
but Persia and Armenia, Bokhara, Tartary, Siberia, and those waste 
Arctic shores where, thirty years before, the brave Sir Hugh 
Willoughby, 

“In Arzina caught, 

Perished with all his crew. ’ 9 

Everywhere English commerce, under the genial sunshine of 
Elizabeth’s wise rule, was spreading and taking root; and as Don 
Guzman talked with his new friends, he soon saw (for he was shrewd 
enough) that they belonged to a race which must be exterminated if 
Spain intended to become (as she did intend) the mistress of the 
world; and that it was not enough for Spain to have seized in the 
Pope’s name the whole new world, and claimed the exclusive right to 
sail the seas of America ; not enough to have crushed the Hollanders ; 
not enough to have degraded the Venetians into her bankers, and 
the Genoese into her mercenaries; not enough to have incorporated 
into herself, with the kingdom of Portugal, the whole East Indian 
trade of Portugal, while these fierce islanders remained to assert, 
with cunning policy and texts of Scripture, and, if they failed, 
with sharp shot and cold steel, free seas and free trade for all the 
nations upon earth. Fie saw it, and his countrymen saw it too: and 
therefore the Spanish Armada came: but of that hereafter. And 
Don Guzman knew also, by hard experience, that these same islanders, 
who sat in Salterne’s parlor talking broad Devon through their noses, 
were no mere counters of money and hucksters of goods : but men who, 
though they thoroughly hated fighting, and loved making money in- 
stead, could fight, upon occasion, after a very dogged and terrible 


The Msyor of Biaeford 221 

fashion, as well as the bluest blood in Spain; and who sent out their 
merchant ships armed up to the teeth, and filled with men who had 
been trained from childhood to use those arms, and had orders to use 
them without mercy if either Spaniard, Portugal, or other created 
being dared to stop their money-making. And one evening he waxed 
quite mad, when, after having civilly enough hinted that if English- 
men came where they had no right to come, they might find themselves 
sent back again, he was answered by a volley of — 

“ We’ll see that, sir.” 

“ Depends on who says ‘ No right.’ ” 

“ You found might right,” said another, “ when you claimed the 
Indian seas; we may find right might when we try them.” 

“Try them, then, gentlemen, by all means, if it shall so please your 
worships ; and find the sacred flag of Spain as invincible as ever was 
the Roman eagle.” 

“ We have, sir. Did you ever hear of Francis Drake? ” 

“ Or of George Fenner and the Portugals at the Azores, one against 
seven? ” 

“ Or of John Hawkins, at St. Juan d’Ulloa? ” 

“ You are insolent burghers,” said Don Guzman, and rose to go. 

“ Sir,” said old Salterne, “ as you say, we are burghers and plain 
men, and some of us have forgotten ourselves a little, perhaps; we 
must beg you to forgive our want of manners, and to put it down to the 
strength of my wine; for insolent we never meant to be, especially to a 
noble gentleman and a foreigner.” 

But the Don would not be pacified ; and walked out, calling himself 
an ass and a blinkard for having demeaned himself to such a company, 
forgetting that he had brought it on himself. 

Salterne (prompted by the great devil Mammon) came up to him 
next day, and begged pardon again ; promising, moreover, that none 
of those who had been so rude should be henceforth asked to meet him, 
if he would deign to honor his house once more. And the Don actu- 
ally was appeased, and went there the very next evening, sneering at 
himself the whole time for going. 

“ Fool that I am ! that girl has bewitched me, I believe. Go I must, 
and eat my share of dirt, for her sake.” 

So he went; and, cunningly enough, hinted to old Salterne that he 
had taken such a fancy to him, and felt so bound by his courtesy and 
hospitality, that he might not object to tell him things which he would 
not mention to every one; for that the Spaniards were not jealous of 


222 


Westward Ho ! 

single traders, but of any general attempt to deprive them of their 
hard-earned wealth: that, however, in the meanwhile, there were 
plenty of opportunities for one man here and there to enrich himself, 
etc. 

Old Salterne, shrewd as he was, had his weak point, and the Span- 
iard had touched it; and delighted at this opportunity of learning the 
mysteries of the Spanish monopoly, he often actually set Rose on to 
draw out the Don, without a fear (so blind does money make men) 
lest she might be herself drawn in. For, first, he held it as impossible 
that she would think of marrying a Popish Spaniard as of marrying 
the man in the moon; and, next, as impossible that he would think of 
marrying a burgher’s daughter as of marrying a negress; and trusted 
that the religion of the one, and the family pride of the other, would 
keep them as separate as beings of two different species. And as for 
love without marriage, if such a possibility ever crossed him, the 
thought was rendered absurd; on Rose’s part by her virtue, on which 
the old man (and rightly) would have staked every farthing he had 
on earth ; and on the Don’s part, by a certain human fondness for the 
continuity of the carotid artery and the parts adjoining, for which 
(and that not altogether justly, seeing that Don Guzman cared as 
little for his own life as he did for his neighbor’s) Mr. Salterne gave 
him credit. And so it came to pass, that for weeks and months, the 
merchant’s house was the Don’s favorite haunt, and he saw the Rose 
of Torridge daily, and the Rose of Torridge heard him. 

And as for her, poor child, she had never seen such a man. He had, 
or seemed to have, all the high-bred grace of Frank, and yet he was 
cast in a manlier mould; he had just enough of his nation’s proud self- 
assertion to make a woman bow before him as before a superior, and 
yet tact enough to let it very seldom degenerate into that boastfulness 
of which the Spaniards were then so often and so justly accused. He 
had marvels to tell by flood and field as many and more than Amyas ; 
and he told them with a grace and an eloquence of which modest, 
simple, old Amyas possessed nothing. Besides, he was on the spot, 
and the Leighs were not, nor indeed were any of her old lovers ; and 
what could she do but amuse herself with the only person who came to 
hand? 

So thought, in time, more ladies than she ; for the country, the north 
of it at least, was all but bare just then of young gallants, what with 
the Netherland wars and the Irish wars; and the Spaniard became 
soon welcome at every house for many a mile round, and made use of 


223 


The M%ycv of Bi&efora 

his welcome so freely, and received so much unwonted attention from 
fair young dames, that his head might have been a little turned, and 
Rose Salterne have thereby escaped, had not Sir Richard delicately 
given him to understand that in spite of the free and easy manners of 
English ladies, brothers were just as jealous, and ladies’ honors at 
least as inexpugnable, as in the land of demureness and Duennas. 
Don Guzman took the hint well enough, and kept on good terms with 
the country gentlemen as with their daughters; and to tell the truth, 
the cunning soldier of fortune found his account in being intimate with 
all the ladies he could, in order to prevent old Salterne from fancying 
that he had any peculiar predilection for Mistress Rose. 

Nevertheless, Mr. Salterne’s parlor being nearest to him, still re- 
mained his most common haunt ; where, while he discoursed for hours 
about 

“Antres vast and deserts idle, 

And of the cannibals that each other eat, 

Of Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
Do grow beneath their shoulders/ ’ 

to the boundless satisfaction of poor Rose’s fancy, he took care to 
season his discourse with scraps of mercantile information, which kept 
the old merchant always expectant and hankering for more, and made 
it worth his while to ask the Spaniard in again and again. 

And his stories, certainly, were worth hearing. He seemed to have 
been everywhere, and to have seen everything: born in Peru, and sent 
home to Spain at ten years old; brought up in Italy; a soldier in the 
Levant; an adventurer to the East Indies; again in America, first in 
the islands, and then in Mexico. Then back again to Spain, and 
thence to Rome, and thence to Ireland. Shipwrecked; captive among 
savages ; looking down the craters of volcanoes ; hanging about all the 
courts of Europe ; fighting Turks, Indians, lions, elephants, alligators, 
and what not? at five-and-thirty he had seen enough for three lives, 
and knew how to make the best of what he had seen. 

He had shared, as a lad, in the horrors of the memorable siege of 
Famagusta, and had escaped, he hardly knew himself how, from the 
hands of the victorious Turks, and from the certainty (if he escaped 
being flayed alive or impaled, as most of the captive officers were) of 
ending his life as a Janissary at the Sultan’s court. He had been at 
the Battle of the Three Kings; had seen Stukely borne down by a 
hundred lances, unconquered even in death; and had held upon his 
knee the head of the dying king of Portugal. 


224 


Westward Ho ! 

And now, as he said to Rose one evening, what had he left on earth, 
but a heart trampled as hard as the pavement? Whom had he to love? 
Who loved him? He had nothing for which to live but fame: and 
even that was denied to him, a prisoner in a foreign land. 

“ Had he no kindred, then? ” asked pitying Rose. 

“My two sisters are in a convent; — they had neither money nor 
beauty; so they are dead to me. My brother is a Jesuit, so he is dead 
to me. My father fell by the hands of Indians in Mexico; my mother, 
a penniless widow, is companion, duenna — whatsoever they may 
choose to call it — carrying fans and lap-dogs for some princess or 
other there in Seville, of no better blood than herself; and I — devil! 
I have lost even my sword — and so fares the house of He Soto.” 

Don Guzman, of course, intended to be pitied, and pitied he was 
accordingly. And then he would turn the conversation, and begin 
telling Italian stories, after the Italian fashion, according to his audi- 
tory ; the pathetic ones when Rose was present, the racy ones when she 
was absent; so that Rose had wept over the sorrows of Juliet and Des- 
demona, and over many another moving tale, long before they were 
ever enacted on an English stage, and the ribs of the Bideford worthies 
had shaken to many a jest which Cinthio and Bandello’s ghosts must 
come and make for themselves over again if they wish them to be 
remembered, for I shall lend them no shove toward immortality. 

And so on, and so on. What need of more words? Before a year 
was out, Rose Salterne was far more in love with Don Guzman than 
he with her; and both suspected each other’s mind, though neither 
hinted at the truth ; she from fear, and he, to tell the truth, from sheer 
Spanish pride of blood. For he soon began to find out that he must 
compromise that blood by marrying the heretic burgher’s daughter, or 
all his labor would be thrown away. 

He had seen with much astonishment, and then practised with much 
pleasure, that graceful old English fashion of saluting every lady on 
the cheek at meeting, which (like the old Dutch fashion of asking 
young ladies out to feasts without their mothers) used to give such 
cause of brutal calumny and scandal to the coarse minds of Romish 
visitors from the Continent; and he had seen, too, fuming with jealous 
rage, more than one Bideford burgher, redolent of onions, profane in 
that way the velvet cheek of Rose Salterne. 

So, one day, he offered his salute in like wise; but he did it when she 
was alone; for something within (perhaps a guilty conscience) whis- 
pered that it might be hardly politic to make the proffer in her father’s 


225 


The Mayor of Biaeford 

presence: however, to his astonishment, he received a prompt though 
quiet rebuff. 

“ No, sir; you should know that my cheek is not for you.” 

1 “ Why,” said he, stifling his anger, “ it seems free enough to every 
counter-jumper in the town! ” 

Was it love, or simple innocence, which made her answer apolo- 
getically? ^ - 

“ True, Don Guzman; but they are my equals.” 

“ And I? ” 

4 You are a nobleman, sir; and should recollect that you are one.” 

“ Well,” said he, forcing a sneer, “ it is a strange taste to prefer the 
shopkeeper ! ” 

“ Prefer? ” said she, forcing a laugh in her turn; “ it is a mere form 
among us. They are nothing to me, I can tell you.” 

“And I, then, less than nothing? ” 

Rose turned very red ; but she had nerve to answer — 

“And why should you be anything to me? You have condescended 
too much, sir, already to us, in giving us many a — many a pleasant 
evening. You must condescend no further. You wrong yourself, 
sir, and me too. No, sir; not a step nearer! — I will not! A salute 
between equals means nothing: but between you and me — I vow, sir, 
if you do not leave me this moment, I will complain to my father.” 

“ Do so, madam! I care as little for your father’s anger, as you for 
my misery.” 

“ Cruel! ” cried Rose, trembling from head to foot. 

“ I love you, madam! ” cried he, throwing himself at her feet. “ I 
adore you ! Never mention differences of rank to me more ; for I have 
forgotten them; forgotten all but love, all but you, madam! My 
light, my lodestar, my princess, my goddess ! You see where my pride 
is gone; remember I plead as a suppliant, a beggar — though one who 
may be one day a prince, a king! ay, and a prince now, a very Lucifer 
of pride to all except to you ; to you a wretch who grovels at your feet, 
and cries, * Have mercy on me, on my loneliness, my homelessness, 
my friendlessness.’ Ah, Rose (madam I should have said, forgive the 
madness of my passion), you know not the heart which you break. 
Cold Northerns, you little dream how a Spaniard can love. Love? 
Worship, rather; as I worship you, madam; as I bless the captivity 
which brought me the sight of you, and the ruin which first made me 
rich. Is it possible, Saints and Virgin! do my own tears deceive my 
eyes, or are there tears, too, in those radiant orbs? ” 


226 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Go, sir! ” cried poor Rose, recovering herself suddenly; “ and let 
me never see you more.’’ And, as a last chance for life, she darted 
out of the room. 

“ Your slave obeys you, madam, and kisses your hands and feet for- 
ever and a day,” said the cunning Spaniard, and drawing himself up, 
walked serenely out of the house; while she, poor fool, peeped after 
him out of her window up-stairs, and her heart sank within her as she 
watched his jaunty and careless air. 

How much of that rhapsody of his was honest, how much premedi- 
tated, I cannot tell : though she, poor child, began to fancy that it was 
all a set speech, when she found that he had really taken her at her 
word, and set foot no more within her father’s house. So she re- 
proached herself for the crudest of women ; settled, that if he died, she 
should be his murderess; watched for him to pass at the window, in 
hopes that he might look up, and then hid herself in terror the moment 
he appeared round the corner; and so forth, and so forth: — one love- 
making is very like another, and has been so, I suppose, since that first 
blessed marriage in Paradise, when Adam and Eve made no love at 
all, but found it ready-made for them from heaven; and really it is 
fiddling while Rome is burning, to spend more pages over the sorrows 
of poor little Rose Salterne, while the destinies of Europe are hanging 
on the marriage between Elizabeth and Anjou: and Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert is stirring heaven and earth, and Devonshire, of course, as the 
most important portion of the said earth, to carry out his dormant 
patent, which will give to England in due time (we are not jesting 
now) Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Canada, and the Northern 
States; and to Humphrey Gilbert himself something better than a 
new world, namely another world, and a crown of glory therein which 
never fades away. 



CHAPTER XI* 

How Eustace Lei$h met Hie Pope’s Legate. 

“ Misguided, rash, intruding fool, farewell! 

Thou see’st to be too busy is some danger.” 

Hamlet . 

It is the spring of 1582-3. The gray March skies are curdling 
hard and high above black mountain peaks. The keen March wind 
is sweeping harsh and dry across a dreary sheet of bog, still red and 
yellow with the stains of winter frost. One brown knoll alone breaks 
the waste, and on it a few leafless wind-clipped oaks stretch their moss- 
grown arms, like giant hairy spiders, above a desolate pool which 
crisps and shivers in the biting breeze, while from beside its brink rises 
a mournful cry, and sweeps down, faint and fitful, amid the howling 
of the wind. 

Along the brink of the bog, picking their road among crumbling 
rocks and green spongy springs, a company of English soldiers are 
pushing fast, clad cap-a-pie in helmet and quilted jerkin, with ar- 
quebus on shoulder, and pikes trailing behind them; stern steadfast 
men, who, two years since, were working the guns at Smerwick fort, 
and have since then seen many a bloody fray, and shall see more before 
they die. Two captains ride before them on shaggy ponies, the taller 
in armor, stained and rusted with many a storm and fray, the other in 
brilliant inlaid cuirass and helmet, gaudy sash and plume, and sword 
hilt glittering with gold, a quaint contrast enough to the meagre 
garron which carries him and his finery. Beside them, secured by a 
cord which a pikeman has fastened to his own wrist, trots a bare-legged 
Irish kerne, whose only clothing is his ragged yellow mantle, and the 
unkempt “ glib ” of hair, through which his eyes peer out, right and 
left, in mingled fear and sullenness. He is the guide of the company, 
in their hunt after the rebel Baltinglas ; and woe to him if he play them 
false. 

“ A pleasant country, truly, Captain Raleigh,” says the dingy officer 
to the gay one. “ I wonder how, having once escaped from it to 


228 


Westward Ho I 

Whitehall, you have the courage to come back and spoil that gay suit 
with bog-water and mud.” 

“A very pleasant country, my friend Amyas; what you say in jest, 
I say in earnest.” 

“ Hillo! Our tastes have changed places. I am sick of it already, 
as you foretold. Would Heaven that I could hear of some adventure 
westward ho! and find these big bones swinging in a hammock once 
more. Pray what has made you so suddenly in love with bog and 
rock, that you come back to tramp them with us? I thought you had 
spied out the nakedness of the land long ago.” 

“ Bog and rock? Nakedness of the land? What is needed here 
but prudence and skill, justice and law? This soil, see, is fat enough, 
if men were here to till it. These rocks — who knows what minerals 
they may hold? I hear of gold and jewels found already in divers 
parts; and Daniel, my brother Humphrey’s German assayer, assures 
me that these rocks are of the very same kind as those which yield the 
silver in Peru. Tut, man! if her gracious Majesty would but bestow 
on me some few square miles of this same wilderness, in seven years’ 
time I would make it blossom like the rose, by God’s good help.” 

“ Humph! I should be more inclined to stay here then.” 

“ So you shall, and be my agent, if you will, to get in my mine-rents, 
and my corn-rents, and my fishery-rents, eh? Could you keep ac- 
counts, old knight of the bear’s-paw? ” 

“ Well enough for such short reckonings as yours would be, on the 
profit side at least. No, no — I’d sooner carry lime all my days from 
Cauldy to Bideford, than pass another twelvemonth in the land of Ire, 
among the children of wrath. There is a curse upon the face of the 
earth, I believe.” 

“ There is no curse upon it, save the old one of man’s sin — ‘ Thorns 
and thistles it shall bring forth to thee.’ But if you root up the thorns 
and thistles, Amyas, I know no fiend who can prevent your growing 
wheat instead; and if you till the ground like a man, you plough and 
harrow away nature’s curse, and other fables of the schoolmen beside,” 
added he, in that daring fashion which afterward obtained for him 
(and never did good Christian less deserve it) the imputation of 
Atheism. 

“ It is sword and bullet, I think, that are needed here, before plough 
and harrow, to clear away some of the curse. Until a few more of 
these Irish lords are gone where the Desmonds are, there is no peace 
for Ireland.” 


229 


The Pope’s Legate 

“ Humph ! not so far wrong, I fear. And yet — Irish lords? These 
very traitors are better English blood than we who hunt them down. 
When Y eo here slew the Desmond the other day, he no more let out a 
drop of Irish blood than if he had slain the Lord Deputy himself.” 

“ His blood be on his own head,” said Yeo. “ He looked as wild a 
savage as the worst of them, more shame to him; and the Ancient here 
had nigh cut off his arm before he told us who he was : and then, your 
worship, having a price upon his head, and like to bleed to death 
too ” 

“ Enough, enough, good fellow,” said Raleigh. “ Thou hast done 
what was given thee to do. Strange, Amyas, is it not? Noble Nor- 
mans sunk into savages — Hibernis ipsis hibemiores! Is there some 
uncivilizing venom in the air?” 

“ Some venom, at least, which mates Englishmen traitors. But the 
Irish themselves are well enough, if their tyrants would let them be. 
See now, what more faithful liegeman has her Majesty than the Inchi- 
quin, who, they say, is Prince of Themond, and should be king of all 
Ireland, if every man had his right? ” 

“ Don’t talk of rights in the land of wrongs, man. But the Inchi- 
quin knows well that the true Irish Esau has no worse enemy than his 
supplanter, the Norman Jacob. And yet, Amyas, are even these men 
worse than we might be, if we had been bred up masters over the bodies 
and souls of men, in some remote land where law and order had never 
come? Look at this Desmond, brought up a savage among savages, 
a Papist among Papists, a despot among slaves; a thousand easy 
maidens deeming it honor to serve his pleasure, a thousand wild ruf- 
fians deeming it piety to fulfil his revenge: and let him that is without 
sin among us cast the first stone.” 

“Ay,” went on Raleigh to himself, as the conversation dropped. 
“ What hadst thou been, Raleigh, hadst thou been that Desmond 
whose lands thou now desirest? What wilt thou be when thou hast 
them? Will thy children sink downward, as these noble barons sank? 
Will the genius of tyranny and falsehood find soil within thy heart to 
grow and ripen fruit? What guarantee hast thou for doing better 
here than those who went before thee? And yet: cannot I do justice, 
and love mercy? Can I not establish plantations, build and sow, and 
make the desert valleys laugh with corn? Shall I not have my Spen- 
ser with me, to fill me with all noble thoughts, and raise my soul to his 
heroic pitch? Is not this true knight-errantry, to redeem to peace and 
use, and to the glory of that glorious Queen whom God has given to 


230 


Westward Ho ! 

me, a generous soil and a more generous race? Trustful and tender- 
hearted they are — none more; and if they be fickle and passionate, will 
not that very softness of temper, which makes them so easily led to 
evil, make them as easy to be led toward good? Yes — here, away 
from courts, among a people who should bless me as their benefactor 
and deliverer — what golden days might be mine! And yet — is this 
but another angel’s mask from that same cunning fiend Ambition’s 
stage? And will my house be indeed the house of God, the founda- 
tions of which are loyalty, and its bulwarks righteousness, and not the 
house of Fame, whose walls are of the soap-bubble, and its floor a sea 
of glass mingled with fire? I would be good and great — When will 
the day come when I shall be content to be good, and yet not great, 
like this same simple Leigh, toiling on by my side to do his duty, with 
no more thought for the morrow than the birds of God? Greatness? 
I have tasted that cup within the last twelve months ; do I not know 
that it is sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly? Greatness ? And 
was not Essex great, and John of Austria great, and Desmond great, 
whose race, but three short years ago, had stood for ages higher than 
I shall ever hope to climb — castles, and lands, and slaves by thousands, 
and five hundred gentlemen of his name, who had vowed to forswear 
God before they forswore him; and well have they kept their vow! 
And now, dead in a turf -hovel, like a coney in a burrow! Leigh, what 
noise was that? ” 

“An Irish howl, I fancied: but it came from off the bog; it may be 
only a plover’s cry.” 

“ Something not quite right, Sir Captain, to my mind,” said the 
Ancient. “ They have ugly stories here of pucks and banshees, and 
what not of ghosts. There it was again, wailing just like a woman. 
They say the banshee cried all night before Desmond was slain.” 

“ Perhaps, then, this one may be crying for Baltinglas; for his turn 
is likely to come next — not that I believe in such old wives’ tales.” 

“ Shamus, my man,” said Amyas to the guide, “ do you hear that 
cry in the bog? ” 

The guide put on the most stolid of faces, and answered in broken 
English : 

“ Shamus hear nought. Perhaps — what you call him? — fishing in 
ta pool.” 

“An otter, he means, and I believe he is right. Stay, no! Did you 
not hear it then, Shamus? It was a woman’s voice.” 

“ Shamus is shick in his ears ever since Christmas.” 


231 


The Pope’s Legate 

/ 

“ Shamus will go after Desmond if he lies,” said Amyas. “An- 
cient, we had better send a few men to see what it is; there may be a 
poor soul taken by robbers, or perhaps starving to death, as I have 
seen many a one.” 

“And I too, poor wretches; and by no fault of their own or ours 
either: but if their lords will fall to quarreling, and then drive each 
other’s cattle, and waste each other’s lands, sir, you know ” 

“ I know,” said Amyas, impatiently; “ why dost not take the men, 
and go? ” 

“Cry you mercy, noble Captain: but — I fear nothing born of 
woman.” 

“ W ell, what of that? ” said Amyas, with a smile. 

“ But these pucks, sir. The wild Irish do say that they haunt the 
pools ; and they do no manner of harm, sir, when you are coming up 
to them; but when you are past, sir, they jump on your back like to 
apes, sir, — and who can tackle that manner of fiend? ” 

“ Why, then, by thine own showing, Ancient,” said Raleigh, “ thou 
may’st go and see all safely enough, and then if the puck jumps on 
thee as thou eomest back, just run in with him here, and I’ll buy him of 
thee for a noble; or thou may’st keep him in a cage, and make money 
in London by showing him for a monster.” 

“Good heavens forefend, Captain Raleigh! but you talk rashly! 
But if I must, Captain Leigh: — 

* Where duty calls 
To brazen walls, 

How base the slave who flinches. * 

Lads, who’ll follow me? ” 

“ Thou askest for volunteers, as if thou wert to lead a forlorn hope. 
Pull away at the usquebaugh, man, and swallow Dutch courage, since 
thine English is oozed away. Stay; I’ll go myself.” 

“And I with you,” said Raleigh. “As the Queen’s true knight- 
errant, I am bound to be behindhand in no adventure. Who knows 
but we may find a wicked magician, just going to cut off the head of 
some saffron-mantled princess? ” and he dismounted. 

“ Oh, sirs, sirs, to endanger your precious ” 

“ Pooh,” said Raleigh. “ I wear an amulet, and have a spell of art- 
magic at my tongue’s end, whereby, Sir Ancient, neither can a ghost 
see me, nor I see them. Come with us, Yeo, the Desmond-slayer, and 
we will shame the devil, or be shamed by him.” 


232 


Westward Ho ! 

“ He may shame me, sir, but he will never frighten me:” quoth Yeo; 
“ but the bog, Captains? ” 

“ Tut! Devonshire men, and heath- trotters born, and not know our 
way over a peat-moor! ” 

And the three strode away. 

They splashed and scrambled for some quarter of a mile to the 
knoll, while the cry became louder and louder as they neared. 

“ That’s neither ghost nor otter, sirs, but a true Irish howl, as Cap- 
tain Leigh said; and I’ll warrant Master Shamus knew as much long- 
ago,” said Yeo. 

And in fact, they could now hear plainly the “ Ochone, Ochonorie,” 
of some wild woman ; and scrambling over the boulders of the knoll, in 
another minute came full upon her. 

She was a young girl, sluttish and unkempt, of course, but fair 
enough; her only covering, as usual, was the ample yellow mantle. 
There she sat upon a stone, tearing her black dishevelled hair, and 
every now and then throwing up her head, and bursting into a long 
mournful cry, “ for all the world,” as Yeo said, “ like a dumb four- 
footed hound, and not a Christian soul.” 

On her knees lay the head of a man of middle age, in the long 
soutane of a Romish priest. One look at the attitude of his limbs told 
them that he was dead. 

The two paused in awe; and Raleigh’s spirit, susceptible of all 
poetical images, felt keenly that strange scene, — the bleak and bitter 
sky, the shapeless bog, the stunted trees, the savage girl alone with the 
corpse in that utter desolation. And as she bent her head over the 
still face, and called wildly to him who heard her not, and then, utterly 
unmindful of the intruders, sent up again that dreary wail into the 
dreary air, they felt a sacred horror, which almost made them turn 
away, and leave her unquestioned: but Yeo, whose nerves were of 
tougher fibre, asked quietly, — 

“ Shall I go and search the fellow, Captain? ” 

“ Better, I think,” said Amyas. 

Raleigh went gently to the girl, and spoke to her in English. She 
looked up at him, his armor and his plume, with wide and wondering 
eyes, and then shook her head, and returned to her lamentation. 

Raleigh gently laid his hand on her arm, and lifted her up, while 
Yeo and Amyas bent over the corpse. 

It was the body of a large and coarse-featured man: but wasted and 
shrunk as if by famine to a very skeleton. The hands and legs were 


The Pope’s Legate 233 

cramped upland the trunk bowed together, as if the man had died of 
cold or famine. Yeo drew back the clothes from the thin bosom, 
while the girl screamed and wept, but made no effort to stop him. 

“Ask her who it is? Yeo, you know a little Irish,” said Amyas. 

He asked, but the girl made no answer. “ The stubborn jade won’t 
tell of course, sir. If she were but a man, I’d make her soon enough.” 

“Ask her who killed him? ” 

“No one, she says; and I believe she says true, for I can find no 
wound. The man has been starved, sirs, as I am a sinful man. God 
help him, though he is a priest: and yet he seems full enough down 
below. What’s here? A big pouch, sirs, stuffed full of somewhat.” 

“ Hand it hither.” 

The two opened the pouch; papers, papers, but no scrap of food. 
Then a parchment. They unrolled it. 

“ Latin,” said Amyas; “ you must construe, Don Scholar.” 

“ Is it possible? ” said Raleigh, after reading a moment. “ This is 
indeed a prize! This is Saunders himself! ” 

Yeo sprang, up from the body as if he had touched an adder. 
“ Nick Saunders, the Legacy, sir? ” 

“ Nicholas Saunders, the Legate.” 

“ The villain! why did not he wait for me to have the comfort of 
killing him? Dog ! ” and he kicked the corpse with his foot. 

“Quiet! quiet! Remember the poor girl,” said Amyas, as she 
shrieked at the profanation, while Raleigh went on, half to himself: 
“ Yes, this is Saunders. Misguided fool, and this is the end! To this 
thou hast come with thy plotting and thy conspiring, thy lying and thy 
boasting, consecrated banners and Pope’s bulls, Agnus Deis and holy 
waters, the blessing of all saints and angels, and thy Lady of the Im- 
maculate Conception! Thou hast called on the Heavens to judge 
between thee and us, and here is their answer! What is that in his 
hand, Amyas? Give it me. A pastoral epistle to the Earl of Or- 
mond, and all nobles of the realm of Ireland; ‘To all who groan 
beneath the loathsome tyranny of an illegitimate adulteress, etc., 
Nicholas Saunders, by the grace of God, Legate, etc.’ Bah! and this 
forsooth was thy last meditation! Incorrigible pedant! Victrix 
causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni ! ” 

He ran his eye through various other documents, written in the 
usual strain: full of huge promises from the Pope and the King of 
Spain ; frantic and filthy slanders against Elizabeth, Burghley, Leices- 
ter, Essex (the elder), Sidney, and every great and good man (never 


234 


Westward Ho ! 

mind of which party) who then upheld the commonweal; bombastic 
attempts to terrify weak consciences, by denouncing endless fire 
against those who opposed the true faith; fulsome ascriptions of 
martyrdom and sanctity to every rebel and traitor who had been hanged 
for the last twenty years; wearisome arguments about the bull In 
Coena Domini, Elizabeth’s excommunication, the nullity of English 
law, the sacred duty of rebellion, the right to kill a prince impenitently 
heretical, and the like insanities and villainies, which may be read at 
large in Camden, the Phoenix Britannicus, Fox’s Martyrs, or, surest 
of all, in the writings of the worthies themselves. 

With a gesture of disgust, Raleigh crammed the foul stuff back 
again into the pouch. Taking it with them, they walked back to the 
company, and then remounting, marched away once more toward the 
lands of the Desmonds ; and the girl was left alone with the dead. 

An hour had passed, when another Englishman was standing by 
the wailing girl, and round him a dozen shock-headed kernes, skene on 
thigh and javelin in hand, were tossing about their tawny rags, and 
adding their lamentations to those of the lonely watcher. 

The Englishman was Eustace Leigh; a layman still, but still at his 
old work. By two years of intrigue and labor from one end of Ire- 
land to the other, he had been trying to satisfy his conscience for re- 
jecting “ the higher calling ” of the celibate; for mad hopes still lurked 
within that fiery heart. His brow was wrinkled now; his features 
harshened; the scar upon his face, and the slight distortion which ac- 
companied it,. was hidden by a bushy beard from all but himself; and 
he never forgot it for a day, nor forgot who had given it to him. 

He had been with Desmond, wandering in moor and moss for many 
a month in danger of his life; and now he was on his way to James 
Fitz-Eustace, Lord Baltinglas, to bring him the news of Desmond’s 
death ; and with him a remnant of the clan, who were either too stout- 
hearted, or too desperately stained with crime, to seek peace from the 
English, and, as their fellows did, find it at once and freely. 

There Eustace stood, looking down on all that was left of the most 
sacred personage of Ireland; the man who, as he once had hoped, was 
to regenerate his native land, and bring the proud island of the west 
once more beneath that gentle yoke, in which united Christendom 
labored for the commonweal of the universal church. There he was, 
and with him all Eustace’s dreams, in the very heart of that country 
which he had vowed, and believed as he vowed, was ready to rise in 
arms as one man, even to the baby at the breast (so he had said), in 


235 


The Pope's Legate 

vengeance against the Saxon heretic, and sweep the hated name of 
Englishman into the deepest abysses of the surge which walled her 
coasts ; with Spain and the Pope to back him, and the wealth of the 
Jesuits at his command; in the midst of faithful Catholics, valiant sol- 
diers, noblemen who had pledged themselves to die for the cause, serfs 
who worshiped him as a demigod — starved to death in a bog! It was 
a pretty plain verdict on the reasonableness of his expectations; but 
not to Eustace Leigh. 

It was a failure, of course; but it was an accident; indeed, to have 
been expected, in a wicked world whose prince and master, as all knew, 
was the devil himself ; indeed, proof of the righteousness of the cause — 
for when had the true faith been other than persecuted and trampled 
under foot? If one came to think of it with eyes purified from the 
tears of carnal impatience, what was it but a glorious martyrdom? 

“Blessed Saunders!” murmured Eustace Leigh; “let me die the 
death of the righteous, and let my last end be like this ! Ora pro me, 
most excellent martyr, while I dig thy grave upon this lonely moor, to 
wait there for thy translation to one of those stately shrines, which, 
cemented by the blood of such as thee, shall hereafter rise restored 
toward heaven, to make this land once more ‘ The Isle of Saints.’ ” 

The corpse was buried; a few prayers said hastily; and Eustace 
Leigh was away again, not now to find Baltinglas; for it was more 
than his life was worth. The girl had told him of the English soldiers 
who had passed, and he knew that they would reach the earl probably 
before he did. The game was up; all was lost. So he retraced his 
steps, as a desperate resource, to the last place where he would be 
looked for: and after a month of disguising, hiding, and other expedi- 
ents, found himself again in his native county of Devon, while Fitz- 
Eustace Viscount Baltinglas had taken ship for Spain, having got 
little by his famous argument to Ormond in behalf of his joining the 
Church of Rome, “ Had not thine ancestor, blessed Thomas of Canter- 
bury, died for the Church of Rome, thou hadst never been Earl of 
Ormond.” The premises were certainly sounder than those of his 
party were wont to be ; for it was to expiate the murder of that turbu- 
lent hero that the Ormond lands had been granted by Henry II: but 
as for the conclusion therefrom, it was much on a par with the rest. 

And now let us return to Raleigh and Amy as, as they jog along 
their weary road. They have many things to talk of ; for it is but 
three days since they met. 

Amyas, as you see, is coming fast into Raleigh’s old opinion of Ire- 


236 


Westward Ho ! 

land. Raleigh, under the inspiration of a possible grant of Desmond’s 
lands, looks on bogs and rocks transfigured by his own hopes and 
fancy, as if by the glory of a rainbow. He looked at all things so, 
noble fellow, even thirty years after, when old, worn out, and ruined; 
well for him had it been otherwise, and his heart had grown old with his 
head! Amyas, who knows nothing about Desmond’s lands, is puzzled 
at the change. 

“ Why, what is this, Raleigh? You are like children sitting in the 
market-place, and nothing pleases you. You wanted to get to court, 
and you have got there; and are lord and master, I hear, or something 
very like it, already — and as soon as Fortune stuffs your mouth full of 
sweetmeats, do you turn informer on her? ” 

Raleigh laughed insignificantly: but was silent. 

“And how is your friend, Mr. Secretary Spenser, who was with us 
at Smerwick? ” 

“ Spenser? He has thriven even as I have; and he has found, as I 
have, that in making one friend at court you make ten foes; but 
‘ Oderint Dum metuant ’ is no more my motto than his, Leigh. I 
want to be great — great I am already, they say, if princes’ favor can 
swell the frog into an ox: but I want to be liked, loved — I want to see 
people smile when I enter.” 

“ So they do, I’ll warrant,” said Amyas. 

“ So do hyenas,” said Raleigh; “ grin because they are hungry, and 
I may throw them a bone; I’ll throw you one now, old lad, or rather a 
good sirloin of beef, for the sake of your smile. That’s honest, at 
least, I’ll warrant, whosoever’s else is not. Have you heard of my 
brother Humphrey’s new project? ” 

“ How should I hear anything in this waste howling wilderness? ” 

“ Kiss hands to the wilderness then, and come with me to New- 
foundland! ” 

“ You to Newfoundland? ” 

“ Yes. I to Newfoundland, unless my little matter here is settled 
at once. Gloriana don’t know it, and shan’t till I’m off. She’d send 
me to the Tower, I think, if she caught me playing truant. I could 
hardly get leave to come hither; but I must out, and try my fortune. I 
am over ears in debt already, and sick of courts and courtiers. Hum- 
phrey must go next spring and take possession of his kingdom beyond 
seas, or his patent expires; and with him I go, and you too, my circum- 
navigating giant.” 

And then Raleigh expounded to Amyas the details of the great 


The Pope's Legate 237 

Newfoundland scheme, which whoso will may read in the pages of 
Hakluyt. 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Raleigh’s half-brother, held a patent for 
“ planting ” the lands of Newfoundland and “Meta Incognita” 
(Labrador). He had attempted a voyage thither with Raleigh in 
1578, whereof I never could find any news, save that he came back 
again, after a heavy brush with some Spanish ships (in which his best 
captain, Mr. Morgan, was killed), having done nothing, and much 
impaired his own estate: but now he had collected a large sum; Sir 
Gilbert Peckham of London, Mr. Hayes of South Devon, and various 
other gentlemen, of whom more hereafter, had adventured their money; 
and a considerable colony was to be sent out the next year, with miners, 
assayers, and, what was more, Parmenius Budseus, Frank’s old friend, 
who had come to England full of thirst to see the wonders of the New 
World; and over and above this, as Raleigh told Amy as in strictest 
secrecy, Adrian Gilbert, Humphrey’s brother, was turning every stone 
at court for a patent of discovery in the northwest; and this New- 
foundland colony, though it was to produce gold, silver, merchandise 
and what not, was but a basis of operations, a half-way house from 
whence to work out the northwest passage to the Indies — that golden 
dream, as fatal to English valor as the Guiana one to Spanish — and 
yet hardly, hardly, to be regretted, when we remember the seamanship, 
the science, the chivalry, the heroism, unequalled in the history of the 
English nation, which it has called forth among those our later Arctic 
voyagers, who have combined the knight-errantry of the middle age 
with the practical prudence of the modern, and dared for duty more 
than Cortez or Pizarro dared for gold. 

Amyas, simple fellow, took all in greedily; he knew enough of the 
dangers of the Magellan passage to appreciate the boundless value of 
a road to the East Indies which would (as all supposed then) save 
half the distance, and be as it were a private possession of the English, 
safe from Spanish interference; and he listened reverently to Sir 
Humphrey’s quaint proofs, half true, half fantastic, of such a passage, 
which Raleigh detailed to him — of the Primum Mobile, and its diurnal 
motion from east to west, in obedience to which the sea-current flowed 
westward ever round the Cape of Good Hope, and being unable to 
pass through the narrow strait between South America and the Ant- 
arctic continent, rushed up the American shore, as the Gulf Stream, 
and poured northwestward between Greenland and Labrador toward 
Cathay and India; of that most crafty argument of Sir Humphrey’s 


238 


Westward Ho ! 

— how Aristotle in his book De Mundo, and Simon Gryneus in his 
annotations thereon, declare that the world (the Old World) is an 
island, compassed by that which Homer calls the river Oceanus ; ergo , 
the New World is an island also, and there is a northwest passage; of 
the three brothers (names unknown) who had actually made the voy- 
age, and named what was afterward called Davis’s Strait after them- 
selves; of the Indians who were cast ashore in Germany in the reign 
of Frederic Barbarossa, who, as Sir Humphrey had learnedly proved 
per modum tollendi, could have come only by the northwest; and 
above all, of Salvaterra, the Spaniard, who in 1568 had told Sir Henry 
Sidney (Philip’s father), there in Ireland, how he had spoken with a 
Mexican friar named Urdaneta, who had himself come from Mar del 
Zur (the Pacific) into Germany by that very northwest passage; at 
which last Amyas shook his head, and said that friars were liars, and 
seeing believing; “ but if you must needs have an adventure, you 
insatiable soul you, why not try for the golden city of Manoa? ” 

“ Manoa? ” asked Raleigh, who had heard, as most had, dim rumors 
of the place. “ What do you know of it? ” 

Whereon Amyas told him all that he had gathered from the Span- 
iard ; and Raleigh, in his turn, believed every word. 

“Humph!” said he after a long silence. “To find that golden 
Emperor; offer him help and friendship from the Queen of England; 
defend him against the Spaniards; if we became strong enough, con- 
quer back all Peru from the Popish tyrants, and reinstate him on the 
throne of the Incas, with ourselves for his body-guard, as the Norman 
Varangians were to the effeminate Emperors of Byzant — Hey, 
Amyas? You would make a gallant chieftain of Varangs. We’ll do 
it, lad!” 

“ We’ll try,” said Amyas; “ but we must be quick, for there’s one 
Berreo sworn to carry out the quest to the death; and if the Spaniards 
once get thither, their plan of works will be much more like Pizarro’s 
than like yours; and by the time we come, there will be neither gold nor 
city left.” 

“Nor Indians either. I’ll warrant the butchers; but lad, I am 
promised to Humphrey; I have a bark fitting out already, and all I 
have, and more, adventured in her; so Manoa must wait.” 

“ It will wait well enough, if the Spaniards prosper no better on 
the Amazon than they have done; but must I come with you? To tell 
the truth, I am quite shore-sick, and to sea I must go. What will my 
mother say? ” 




239 


The Pope's Legate 

“ I’ll manage thy mother,” said Raleigh; and so he did; for, to cut 
a long story short, he went back the month after, and he not only took 
home letters from Amyas to his mother, but so impressed on that good 
lady the enormous profits and honors to be derived from Meta Incog- 
nita, and (which was most true) the advantage to any young man of 
sailing with such a general as Humphrey Gilbert, most pious and most 
learned of seamen and of cavaliers, beloved and honored above all his 
compeers by Queen Elizabeth, that she consented to Amyas’s adven- 
turing in the voyage some two hundred pounds which had come to him 
as his share of prize-money, after the ever memorable circumnaviga- 
tion. For Mrs. Leigh, be it understood, was no longer at Burrough 
Court. By F rank’s persuasion, she had let the old place, moved up to 
London with her eldest son, and taken for herself a lodging somewhere 
by Palace Stairs, which looked out upon the silver Thames (for 
Thames was silver then) , with its busy ferries and gliding boats, across 
to the pleasant fields of Lambeth, and the Archbishop’s Palace, and 
the wooded Surrey hills; and there she spent her peaceful days, close 
to her Frank and to the Court. Elizabeth would have had her reenter 
it, offering her a small place in the household: but she declined, saying 
that she was too old and heart-weary for aught but prayer. So by 
prayer she lived, under the sheltering shadow of the tall minster, 
where she went morn and even to worship, and to entreat for the two 
in whom her heart was bound up; and Frank slipped in every day, if 
but for five minutes, and brought with him Spenser, or Raleigh, or 
Dyer, or Budseus, or sometimes Sidney’s self: and there was talk of 
high and holy things, of which none could speak better than could she ; 
and each guest went from that hallowed room a humbler and yet a 
loftier man. So slipped on the peaceful months; and few and far 
between came Irish letters, for Ireland was then farther from West- 
minster than is the Black Sea now; but those were days in which wives 
and mothers had learned (as they have learned once more, sweet 
souls!) to walk by faith and not by sight for those they love: and Mrs. 
Leigh was content (though when was she not content?) to hear that 
Amyas was winning a good report as a brave and prudent officer, sober, 
just and faithful, beloved and obeyed alike by English soldiers and 
Irish kernes. 

Those two years, and the one which followed, were the happiest 
which she had known since her husband’s death. But the cloud was 
fast coming up the horizon, though she saw it not. A little longer, 
and the sun would be hid for many a wintry day. 


240 


Westward Ho ! 

Amyas went to Plymouth (with Yeo, of course, at his heels), and 
there beheld, for the first time, the majestic countenance of the philos- 
opher of Compton Castle. He lodged with Drake, and found him 
not over sanguine as to the success of the voyage. 

“ For learning and manners, Amyas, there’s not his equal; and the 
Queen may well love him, and Devon be proud of him; but book- 
learning is not business; book-learning didn’t get me round the world; 
book-learning didn’t make Captain Hawkins, nor his father neither, 
the best shipbuilders from Hull to Cadiz; and book-learning, I very 
much fear, won’t plant Newfoundland.” 

However, the die was cast, and the little fleet of five sail assembled 
in Cawsand Bay. Amyas was to go as a gentleman adventurer on 
board of Raleigh’s bark; Raleigh himself, however, at the eleventh 
hour, had been forbidden by the Queen to leave England. Ere they 
left, Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s picture was painted by some Plymouth 
artist, to be sent up to Elizabeth in answer to a letter and a gift sent 
by Raleigh, which, as a specimen of the men and of the time, I here 
transcribe: — 

1 “ Brother, — I have sent you a token from her Majesty, an anchor 
guided by a lady, as you see. And further, her Highness willed me 
to send you word, that she wisheth you as great good hap and safety to 
your ship as if she were there in person, desiring you to have care of 
yourself as of that which she tendereth; and, therefore, for her sake, 
you must provide for it accordingly. Furthermore, she commandeth 
that you leave your picture with her. For the rest I leave till our meet- 
ing, or to the report of the bearer, who would needs be the messenger 
of this good news. So I commit you to the will and protection of 
God, who send us such life and death as he shall please, or hath ap- 
pointed. 

“ Richmond, this Friday morning, 

“ Your true Brother, 

“ W. Raleigh.” 

“ Who would not die, sir, for such a woman? ” said Sir Humphrey 
(and he said truly), as he showed that letter to Amyas. 

“ Who would not? But she bids you rather live for her.” 

“ I shall do both, young man; and for God too, I trust. We are 
going in God’s cause; we go for the honor of God’s Gospel, for the 

1 This letter was a few years since in the possession of Mr. Pomeroy Gilbert, fort- 
major at Dartmouth, a descendant of the Admiral's. 


241 


The Pope's Legate 

deliverance of poor infidels led captive by the devil; for the relief of 
my distressed countrymen unemployed within this narrow isle; and to 
God we commit our cause. We fight against the devil himself; and 
stronger is He that is within us than he that is against us.” 

Some say that Raleigh himself came down to Plymouth, accom- 
panied the fleet a day’s sail to sea, and would have given her Majesty 
the slip, and gone with them Westward-ho, but for Sir Humphrey’s 
advice. It is likely enough: but I cannot find evidence for it. At all 
events, on the 11th of June the fleet sailed out, having, says Mr. 
Hayes, “ in number about 260 men, among whom we had of every 
faculty good choice, as shipwrights, masons, carpenters, smiths, and 
such like, requisite for such an action; also mineral men and refiners. 
Beside, for solace of our people and allurement of the savages, we were 
provided of musique in good variety; not omitting the least toys, as 
morris-dancers, hobby-horses, and May-like conceits, to delight the 
savage people, whom we intended to win by all fair means possible.” 
An armament complete enough, even to that tenderness toward the 
Indians, which is so striking a feature of the Elizabethan seamen 
(called out in them, perhaps, by horror at the Spanish cruelties, as well 
as by their more liberal creed), and to the daily service of God on 
board of every ship, according to the simple old instructions of Cap- 
tain John Hawkins to one of his little squadrons, “ Keep good com- 
pany; beware of fire; serve God daily; and love one another” — an 
armament, in short, complete in all but men. The sailors had been 
picked up hastily and anywhere, and soon proved themselves a muti- 
nous, and, in the case of the bark Swallow , a piratical set. The 
mechanics were little better. The gentlemen-adventurers, puffed up 
with vain hopes of finding a new Mexico, became soon disappointed 
and surlv at the hard practical reality; while over all was the head of a 
sage and an enthusiast, a man too noble to suspect others, and too pure 
to make allowances for poor dirty human weaknesses. He had got 
his scheme perfect upon paper; well for him, and for his company, if 
he had asked Francis Drake to translate it for him into fact! As 
early as the second day, the seeds of failure began to sprout above 
ground. The men of Raleigh’s bark, the Vice-Admiral, suddenly 
found themselves seized, or supposed themselves seized, with a con- 
tagious sickness, and at midnight forsook the fleet, and went back to 
Plymouth; whereto Mr. Hayes can only say, “ The reason I never 
could understand. Sure I am that Mr. Raleigh spared no cost in 
setting them forth. And so I leave it unto God! 


242 


Westward Ho ! 

But Amyas said more. He told Butler the Captain plainly that, 
if the bark went back, he would not; that he had seen enough of ships 
deserting their consorts ; that it should never be said of him that he had 
followed Winter’s example, and that, too, on a fair easterly wind; and 
finally that he had seen Doughty hanged for trying to play such a 
trick, and that he might see others hanged too before he died. 
Whereon Captain Butler offered to draw and fight, to which Amyas 
showed no repugnance; whereon the captain, having taken a second 
look at Amyas’s thews and sinews, reconsidered the matter, and offered 
to put Amyas on board of Sir Humphrey’s Delight , if he could find a 
crew to row him. 

Amyas looked round. 

“Are there any of Sir Francis Drake’s men on board? ” 

“ Three, sir,” said Yeo. “ Robert Drew, and two others.” 

“ Pelicans! ” roared Amyas, “ you have been round the world, and 
will you turn back from Westward-ho? ” 

There was a moment’s silence, and then Drew came forward. 

“ Lower us a boat, Captain, and lend us a caliver to make signals 
with, while I get my kit on deck; I’ll after Captain Leigh, if I row 
him aboard all alone to my own hands.” 

“ If I ever command a ship, I will not forget you,” said Amyas. 

“ Nor us either, sir, we hope; for we haven’t forgotten you and your 
honest conditions,” said both the other Pelicans ; and so away over the 
side went all the five, and pulled away after the admiral’s lantern, 
firing shots at intervals as signals. Luckily for the five desperadoes, 
the night was all but calm. They got on board before the morning, 
and so away into the boundless West.’ 

1 The Raleigh, the largest ship of the squadron, was of only 200 tons burden; The Golden 
Hind, Hayes’ ship, which returned safe, of 40; and The Squirrel (whereof more hereafter), 
of 10 tons! In such cockboats did these old heroes brave the unknown seas. 



CHAPTER XII. 

How Biaefora Bridge dined at Amaety Jiouse 

‘ ‘ Three lords sat drinking late yestereen, 

And ere they paid the lawing, 

They set a combat them between, 

To fight it in the dawing. ’ ’ — Scotch Ballad. 

Every one who knows Bideford cannot but know Bideford Bridge; 
for it is the very omphalos, cynosure, and soul, around which the town, 
as a body, has organized itself; and as Edinburgh is Edinburgh by 
virtue of its Castle, Rome Rome by virtue of its Capitol, and Egypt 
Egypt by virtue of its Pyramids, so is Bideford Bideford by virtue of 
its Bridge. But all do not know the occult powers which have ad- 
vanced and animated the said wondrous bridge for now five hundred 
years, and made it the chief wonder, according to Prince and Fuller, 
of this fair land of Devon: being first an inspired bridge; a soul-saving 
bridge; an alms-giving bridge; an educational bridge; a sentient 
bridge; and last, but not least, a dinner-giving bridge. All do not 
know how, when it began to be built some half-mile higher up, hands 
invisible carried the stones down-stream each night to the present 
site; until Sir Richard Gurney, parson of the parish, going to bed one 
night in sore perplexity and fear of the evil spirit who seemed so busy 
in his sheep fold, beheld a vision of an angel, who bade build the bridge 
where he himself had so kindly transported the materials; for there 
alone was sure foundation amid the broad sheet of shifting sand. All 
do not know how Bishop Grandison of Exeter proclaimed throughout 
his diocese indulgences, benedictions, and “ participation in all spiri- 
tual blessings for ever,” to all who would promote the bridging of that 
dangerous ford; and so, consulting alike the interests of their souls 
and of their bodies, “ make the best of both worlds.” 

All do not know, nor do I, that “ though the foundation of the 
bridge is laid upon wool, yet it shakes at the slightest step of a horse ; ” 
or that, “ though it has twenty-three arches, yet one Wm. Alford 
(another Milo) carried on his back for a wager four bushels salt-water 
measure, all the length thereof;” or that the bridge is a veritable 


244 


Westward Ho ! 

esquire, bearing arms of its own (a ship and. bridge proper on a plain 
field), and owning lands and tenements in many parishes, with which 
the said miraculous bridge has, from time to time, founded charities, 
built schools, waged suits at law, and finally (for this concerns us 
most) given yearly dinners, and kept for that purpose (luxurious and 
liquorish bridge that it was) the best stocked cellar of wines in all 
Devon. 

To one of these dinners, as it happened, were invited in the year 
1583, all the notabilities of Bideford, and beside them Mr. St. Leger 
of Annery close by, brother of the Marshal of Munster, and of Lady 
Grenvile; a most worthy and hospitable gentleman, who, finding 
riches a snare, parted with them so freely to all his neighbors as long 
as he lived, that he effectually prevented his children after him from 
falling into the temptations thereunto incident. 

Between him and one of the bridge trustees arose an argument, 
whether a salmon caught below the bridge was better or worse than 
one caught above ; and as that weighty question could only be decided 
by practical experiment, Mr. St. Leger vowed, that as the bridge had 
given him a good dinner, he would give the bridge one; offered a bet 
of five pounds that he would find them, out of the pool below Annery, 
as firm and flaky a salmon as the Appledore one which they had just 
eaten; and then, in the fulness of his heart, invited the whole company 
present to dine with him at Annery three days after, and bring with 
them each a wife or daughter; and Don Guzman being at table, he 
was invited too. 

So there was a mighty feast in the great hall at Annery, such as 
had seldom been since Judge Hankford feasted Edward the Fourth 
there; and while every one was eating their best and drinking their 
worst, Rose Salterne and Don Guzman were pretending not to see 
each other, and watching each other all the more. But Rose, at least, 
had to be very careful of her glances; for not only was her father at 
the table, but just opposite her sat none other than Messrs. William 
Cary and Arthur St. Leger, Lieutenants in her Majesty’s Irish army, 
who had returned on furlough a few days before. 

Rose Salterne and the Spaniard had not exchanged a word in the 
last six months, though they had met many times. The Spaniard by 
no means avoided her company, except in her father’s house; he only 
took care to obey her carefully, by seeming always unconscious of her 
presence, beyond the stateliest of salutes at entering and departing. 
But he took care, at the same time, to lay himself out to the very best 


245 


Bideford Bridge 

advantage whenever he was in her presence; to be more witty, more 
eloquent, more romantic, more full of wonderful tales than he ever 
yet had been. The cunning Don had found himself foiled in his first 
tactic; and he was now trying another, and a far more formidable one. 
In the first place, Rose deserved a very severe punishment, for having 
dared to refuse the love of a Spanish nobleman; and what greater 
punishment could he inflict than withdrawing the honor of his atten- 
tions, and the sunshine of his smiles? There was conceit enough in 
that notion, but there was cunning too; for none knew better than 
the Spaniard, that women, like the world, are pretty sure to value a 
man (especially if there be any real worth in him) at his own price; 
and that the more he demands for himself, the more they will give for 
him. 

And now he would put a high price on himself, and pique her pride, 
as she was too much accustomed to worship, to be won by flattering it. 
He might have done that by paying attention to some one else: but 
he was too wise to employ so coarse a method, which might raise in- 
dignation, or disgust, or despair in Rose’s heart, but would have never 
brought her to his feet — as it will never bring any woman worth 
bringing. So he quietly and unobtrusively showed her that he could 
do without her; and she, poor fool, as she was meant to do, began 
forthwith to ask herself — why? What was the hidden treasure, what 
was the reserve force, which made him independent of her, while she 
could not say that she was independent of him? Had he a secret? 
how pleasant to know it! Some huge ambition? how pleasant to 
share in it! Some mysterious knowledge? how pleasant to learn it! 
Some capacity of love beyond the common? how delicious to have it 
all for her own ! He must be greater, wiser, richer-hearted than she 
was, as well as better-born. Ah, if his wealth would but supply her 
poverty! And so, step by step, she was being led to sue in forma 
pauperis to the very man whom she had spurned when he sued in like 
form to her. That temptation of having some mysterious private 
treasure, of being the priestess of some hidden sanctuary, and being 
able to thank heaven that she was not as other women are, was becom- 
ing fast too much for Rose, as it is too much for most. For none 
knew better than the Spaniard how much more fond women are, by the 
very law of their sex, of worshiping than of being worshiped, and of 
obeying than of being obeyed; how their coyness, often their scorn, is 
but a mask to hide their consciousness of weakness; and a mask, too, 
of which they themselves will often be the first to tire. 


246 


Westward Ho S 

And Rose was utterly tired of that same mask as she sat at table at 
Annery that day; and Don Guzman saw it in her uneasy and down- 
cast looks, and thinking (conceited coxcomb) that she must be by now 
sufficiently punished, stole a glance at her now and then, and was not 
abashed when he saw that she dropped her eyes when they met his, 
because he saw her silence and abstraction increase, and something 
like a blush steal into her cheeks. So he pretended to be as much 
downcast and abstracted as she was, and went on with his glances, till 
he once found her, poor thing, looking at him to see if he was looking 
at her; and then he knew his prey was safe, and asked her, with his 
eyes, “ Do you forgive me? ” and saw her stop dead in her talk to her 
next neighbor, and falter, and drop her eyes, and raise them again 
after a minute in search of his, that he might repeat the pleasant ques- 
tion. And then what could she do but answer with all her face, and 
every bend of her pretty neck, “And do you forgive me in turn? ” 

Whereon Don Guzman broke out jubilant, like nightingale on 
bough, with story, and jest, and repartee; and became forthwith the 
soul of the whole company, and the most charming of all cavaliers. 
And poor Rose knew that she was the cause of his sudden change of 
mood, and blamed herself for what she had done, and shuddered and 
blushed at her own delight, and longed that the feast was over, that 
she might hurry home and hide herself alone with sweet fancies about 
a love the reality of which she felt she dared not face. 

It was a beautiful sight, the great terrace at Annery that after- 
noon; with the smart dames in their gaudy dresses parading up and 
down in twos and threes before the stately house; or looking down 
upon the park, with the old oaks, and the deer, and the broad land- 
locked river spread out like a lake beneath, all bright in the glare of 
the midsummer sun; or listening obsequiously to the two great ladies 
who did the honors, Mrs. St. Leger the hostess, and her sister-in-law, 
fair Lady Grenvile. All chatted, and laughed, and eyed each other’s 
dresses, and gossiped about each other’s husbands and servants: only 
Rose Salterne kept apart, and longed to get into a corner and laugh 
or cry, she knew not which. 

“ Our pretty Rose seems sad,” said Lady Grenvile, coming up to 
her. “ Cheer up, child! we want you to come and sing to us.” 

Rose answered she knew not wha^t, and obeyed mechanically. 

She took the lute, and sat down on a bench beneath the house, while 
the rest grouped themselves round her. 

“What shall I sing?” 


247 


Bidefora Bridge 

“ Let us have your old song, ‘ Earl Haldan’s Daughter.’ ” 

Rose shrank from it. It was a loud and dashing ballad, which 
chimed in but little with her thoughts; and Frank had praised it too, 
in happier days long since gone by. She thought of him, and of 
others, and of her pride and carelessness ; and the song seemed ominous 
to her: and yet for that very reason she dared not refuse to sing it, for 
fear of suspicion where no one suspected; and so she began per- 
force — 

1 . 

“It was Earl Haldan’s daughter, 

She look ’d across the sea ; 

She look’d across the water, 

And long and loud laugh ’d she ; 

‘ The locks of six princesses 
Must be my marriage-fee, 

So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 

Who comes a wooing me ? ’ 

2 . 

“It was Earl Haldan’s daughter, 

She walk’d along the sand; 

When she was aware of a knight so fair, 

Come sailing to the land. 

His sails were all of velvet, 

His mast of beaten gold, 

And ‘ hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat, 

Who saileth here so bold ? ’ 

3 . 

* 1 1 The locks of five princesses 
I won beyond the sea ; 

I shore their golden tresses, 

To fringe a cloak for thee. 

One handful yet is wanting, 

But one of all the tale ; 

So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 

Furl up thy velvet sail!’ 

4 . 

* 1 He leapt into the water, 

That rover young and bold ; 

He gript Earl Haldan’s daughter, 

He shore her locks of gold ; 

‘ Go weep, go weep, proud maiden, 

The tale is full to-day. 

Now hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 

Sail Westward ho, and away!’ ” - 


248 Westward Ho S 

As she ceased, a measured voice, with a foreign accent, thrilled 
through her. 

“ In the East, they say the nightingale sings to the rose; Devon, 
more happy, has nightingale and rose in one.” 

“We have no nightingales in Devon, Don Guzman,” said Lady 
Grenvile; “but our little forest thrushes sing, as you hear, sweetly 
enough to content any ear. But what brings you away from the gen- 
tlemen so early? ” 

“ These letters,” said he, “ which have just been put into my hand; 
and as they call me home to Spain, I was loth to lose a moment of that 
delightful company from which I must part so soon.” 

“ To Spain? ” asked half a dozen voices: for the Don was a general 
favorite. 

“ Yes, and thence to the Indies. My ransom has arrived, and with 
it the promise of an office. I am to be Governor of La Guayra in 
Caraccas. Congratulate me on my promotion.” 

A mist was over Rose’s eyes. The Spaniard’s voice was hard and 
flippant. Did he care for her after all ? And if he did, was it never- 
theless hopeless? How her cheeks glowed! Everybody must see it! 
Anything to turn away their attention from her, and in that nervous 
haste which makes people speak, and speak foolishly too, just because 
they ought to be silent, she asked, — 

“And where is La Guayra? ” 

“ Half round the world, on the coast of the Spanish Main. The 
loveliest place on earth, and the loveliest governor’s house, in a forest 
of palms at the foot of a mountain eight thousand feet high: I shall 
only want a wife there to be in paradise.” 

“ I don’t doubt that you may persuade some fair lady of Seville to 
accompany you thither,” said Lady Grenvile. 

“ Thanks, gracious Madam: but the truth is, that since I have had 
the bliss of knowing English ladies, I have begun to think that they 
are the only ones on earth worth wooing.” 

“A thousand thanks for the compliment; but I fear none of our free 
English maidens would like to submit to the guardianship of a duenna. 
Eh, Rose? how should you like to be kept under lock and key all day 
by an ugly old woman with a horn on her forehead? ” 

Poor Rose turned so scarlet that Lady Grenvile knew her secret on 
the spot, and would have tried to turn the conversation: but before 
she could speak, some burgher’s wife blundered out a commonplace 
about the jealousy of Spanish husbands; and another, to make matters 


Bideford Bridge 249 

better, giggled out something more true than delicate about West 
Indian masters and fair slaves. 

“ Ladies,” said Don Guzman, reddening, “ believe me that these 
are but the calumnies of ignorance. If we be more jealous than other 
nations, it is because we love more passionately. If some of us abroad 
are profligate, it is because they, poor men, have no helpmate, which, 
like the amethyst, keeps its wearer pure. I could tell you stories, 
ladies, of the constancy and devotion of Spanish husbands, even in the 
Indies, as strange as ever romancer invented.” 

“ Can you? Then we challenge you to give us one at least.” 

“ I fear it would be too long, Madam.” 

“ The longer the more pleasant, Senor. How can we spend an 
hour better this afternoon, while the gentlemen within are finishing 
their wine? ” 

Story-telling, in those old times, when books (and authors also, 
lucky for the public) were rarer than now, was a common amusement; 
and as the Spaniard’s accomplishments in that line were well known, 
all the ladies crowded round him; the servants brought chairs and 
benches ; and Don Guzman, taking his seat in the midst, with a proud 
humility, at Lady Grenvile’s feet, began. 

' “ Your perfections, fair and illustrious ladies, must doubtless have 
heard, ere now, how Sebastian Cabota, some forty-five years ago, 
sailed forth with a commission from my late master, the Emperor 
Charles the Fifth, to discover the golden lands of Tarshish, Ophir, 
and Cipango; but being in want of provisions, stopped short at the 
mouth of that mighty South American river to which he gave the name 
of Rio de la Plata, and sailing up it, discovered the fair land of 
Paraguay. But you may not have heard how, on the bank of that 
river, at the mouth of the Rio Terceiro, he built a fort which men still 
call Cabot’s Tower; nor have you, perhaps, heard of the strange tale 
which will ever make the tower a sacred spot to all true lovers. 

“ For when he returned to Spain the year after, he left in his tower 
a garrison of a hundred and twenty men, under the command of Nuno 
de Lara, Ruiz Moschera, and Sebastian da Hurtado, old friends and 
fellow-soldiers of my invincible grandfather Don Ferdinando da Soto; 
and with them a jewel, than which Spain never possessed one more 
precious, Lucia Miranda, the wife of Hurtado, who, famed in the 
Court of the Emperor no less for her wisdom and modesty than for 
her unrivalled beauty, had thrown up all the pomp and ambition of a 
palace, to marry a poor adventurer, and to encounter with him the 


250 


Wesrwar a Ho ! 

hardships of a voyage round the world. Mangora, the Cacique of the 
neighboring Timbuez Indians (with whom Lara had contrived to 
establish a friendship), cast his eyes on this fair creature, and no 
sooner saw than he coveted; no sooner coveted than he plotted, with 
the devilish subtilty of a savage, to seize by force what he knew he 
could never gain by right. She soon found out his passion (she was 
wise enough — what every woman is not — to know when she is loved), 
and telling her husband, kept as much as she could out of her new 
lover’s sight ; while the savage pressed Hurtado to come and visit him, 
and to bring his lady with him. Hurtado, suspecting the snare, and 
yet fearing to offend the Cacique, excused himself courteously on the 
score of his soldier’s duty; and the savage, mad with desire and dis- 
appointment, began plotting against Hurtado’s life. 

“ So went on several weeks, till food grew scarce, and Don Hurtado 
and Don Ruiz Moschera, with fifty soldiers, were sent up the river on 
a foraging party. Mangora saw his opportunity, and leaped at it 
forthwith. 

“ The tower, ladies, as I have heard from those who have seen it, 
stands on a knoll at the meeting of the two rivers, while on the land 
side stretches a dreary marsh, covered with tall grass and bushes; a 
fit place for the ambuscade of four thousand Indians, which Mangora, 
with devilish cunning, placed around the tower, while he himself went 
boldly up to it, followed by thirty men, laden with grain, fruit, game, 
and all the delicacies which his forests could afford. 

“ There, with a smiling face, he told the unsuspecting Lara his 
sorrow for the Spaniard’s want of food; besought him to accept the 
provision he had brought, and was, as he had expected, invited by Lara 
to come in and taste the wines of Spain. 

“ In went he and his thirty fellow-bandits, and the feast continued, 
with songs and libations, far into the night, while Mangora often 
looked round, and at last boldly asked for the fair Miranda: but she 
had shut herself into her lodging, pleading illness. 

“A plea, fair ladies, which little availed that hapless dame: for no 
sooner had the Spaniards retired to rest, leaving (by I know not what 
madness) Mangora and his Indians within, than they were awakened 
by the cry of fire, the explosion of their magazine, and the inward rush 
of the four thousand from the marsh outside. 

“ Why pain your gentle ears with details of slaughter? A few fear- 
ful minutes sufficed to exterminate my bewildered and unarmed coun- 
trymen, to bind the only survivors, Miranda (innocent cause of the 


251 


Bideford Bridge 

whole tragedy) and four other women with their infants, and to lead 
them away in triumph across the forest toward the Indian town. 

“ Stunned by the suddenness of the evils which had passed, and still 
more by the thought of those worse which were to come (as she too 
well foresaw), Miranda traveled all night through the forest, and was 
brought in triumph at day-dawn before the Indian king to receive her 
doom. Judge of her astonishment, when, on loqking up, she saw that 
he was not Mangora. . 

“A ray of hope flashed across her, and she asked where he was. 

He was slain last night,’ said the king; ‘ and I, his brother Siripa, 
am now Cacique of the Timbuez.’ 

“ It was true; Lara, maddened with drink, rage, and wounds, had 
caught up his sword, rushed into the thick of the fight, singled out the 
traitor, and slain him on the spot; and then, forgetting safety in re- 
venge, had continued to plunge his sword into the corpse, heedless of 
the blows of the savages, till he fell pierced with a hundred wounds. 

“A ray of hope, as I said, flashed across the wretched Miranda for 
a moment; but the next she found that she had been freed from one 
bandit only to be delivered to another. 

“ ‘ Yes,’ said the new king in broken Spanish; ‘ my brother played 
a bold stake, and lost it ; but it was well worth the risk, and he showed 
his wisdom thereby. You cannot be his queen now: you must content 
yourself with being mine.’ 

“ Miranda, desperate, answered him with every fierce taunt which 
she could invent against his treachery and his crime; and asked him, 
how he came to dream that the wife of a Christian Spaniard would 
condescend to become the mistress of a heathen savage; hoping, un- 
happy lady, to exasperate him into killing her on the spot. But in 
vain; she only prolonged thereby her own misery. For, whether it 
was, ladies, that the novel sight of divine virtue and beauty awed (as 
it may have awed me ere now), where it had just before maddened; 
or whether some dream crossed the savage (as it may have crossed me 
ere now), that he could make the wisdom of a mortal angel help his 
ambition, as well as her beauty his happiness; or whether (which I will 
never believe of one of those dark children of the devil, though I can 
boldly assert it of myself) some spark of boldness within him made 
him too proud to take by force what he could not win by persuasion, 
certain it is, as the Indians themselves confessed afterward, that the 
savage only answered her by smiles; and bidding his men unbind her, 
told her that she was no slave of his, and that it only lay with her to 


252 


Westward Ho ! 

become the sovereign of him and all his vassals ; assigned her a hut to 
herself, loaded her with savage ornaments, and for several weeks 
treated her with no less courtesy (so miraculous is the power of love) 
than if he had been a cavalier of Castile. 

“ Three months and more, ladies, as I have heard, passed in this 
misery, and every day Miranda grew more desperate of all deliverance, 
and saw staring her in the face, nearer and nearer, some hideous and 
shameful end; when one day going down with the wives of the Cacique 
to draw water in the river, she saw on the opposite bank a white man 
in a tattered Spanish dress, with a drawn sword in his hand; who had 
no sooner espied her, than shrieking her name, he plunged into the 
stream, swam across, landed at her feet, and clasped her in his arms. 
It was no other, ladies, incredible as it may seem, than Don Sebastian 
himself, who had returned with Ruiz Moschera to the tower, and found 
it only a charred and blood-stained heap of ruins. 

“ He guessed, as by inspiration, what had passed, and whither his 
lady was gone; and without a thought of danger, like a true Spanish 
gentleman, and a true Spanish lover, darted off alone into the forest, 
and guided only by the inspiration of his own loyal heart, found again 
his treasure, and found it still unstained and his own. 

“ Who can describe the joy, and who again the terror, of their 
meeting? The Indian women had fled in fear, and for the short ten 
minutes that the lovers were left together, life, to be sure, was one 
long kiss. But what to do they knew not. To go inland was to rush 
into the enemy’s arms. He would have swum with her across the 
river, and attempted it; but his strength, worn out with hunger and 
travel, failed him; he drew her with difficulty on shore again, and sat 
down by her to await their doom with prayer, the first and last resource 
of virtuous ladies, as weapons are of cavaliers. 

“Alas for them! May no true lovers ever have to weep over joys 
so soon lost, after having been so hardly found! For, ere a quarter 
of an hour was passed, the Indian women, who had fled at his ap- 
proach, returned with all the warriors of the tribe. Don Sebastian, 
desperate, would fain have slain his wife and himself on the spot; but 
his hand sank again — and whose would not but an Indian’s? — as he 
raised it against that fair and faithful breast; in a few minutes he was 
surrounded, seized from behind, disarmed, and carried in triumph into 
the village. And if you cannot feel for him in that misery, fair ladies, 
who have known no sorrow, yet I, a prisoner, can.” 

Don Guzman paused a moment, as if overcome by emotion ; and I 


253 


Bidefora Bridge 

will not say that, as he paused, he did not look to see if Rose Salterne’s 
eyes were on him, as indeed they were. 

“Yes, I can feel with him; I can estimate, better than you, ladies, 
the greatness of that love which could submit to captivity; to the loss 
of his sword; to the loss of that honor, which, next to God and his 
mother, is the true Spaniard’s deity. There are those who have suf- 
fered that shame at the hands of valiant gentlemen ” (and again Don 
Guzman looked up at Rose) , “ and yet would have sooner died a thou- 
sand deaths; but he dared to endure it from the hands of villains, 
savages, heathens; for he was a true Spaniard, and therefore a true 
lover: but I will go on with my tale. 

“ This wretched pair, then, as I have been told by Ruiz Moschera 
himself, stood together before the Cacique. He, like a true child of 
the devil, comprehending in a moment who Don Sebastian was, 
laughed with delight at seeing his rival in his power, and bade bind 
him at once to a tree, and shoot him to death with arrows. 

“ But the poor Miranda sprang forward, and threw herself at his 
feet, and with piteous entreaties besought for mercy from him who 
knew no mercy. 

“And yet love, and the sight of her beauty, and the terrible elo- 
quence of her words, while she invoked on his head the just vengeance 
of Heaven, wrought even on his heart: nevertheless the pleasure of 
seeing her, who had so long scorned him, a suppliant at his feet, was 
too delicate to be speedily foregone ; and not till she was all but blind 
with tears, and dumb with agony of pleading, did he make answer, 
that if she would consent to become his wife, her husband’s life should 
be spared. She, in her haste and madness, sobbed out desperately I 
know not what consent. Don Sebastian, who understood, if not the 
language, still the meaning (so had love quickened his understanding) , 
shrieked to her not to lose her precious soul for the sake of his worth- 
less body; that death was nothing compared to the horror of that 
shame; and such other words as became a noble and valiant gentle- 
man. She, shuddering now at her own frailty, would have recalled 
her promise; but Siripa kept her to it, vowing, if she disappointed 
him again, such a death to her husband as made her blood run cold to 
hear of; and the wretched woman could only escape for the present 
by some story, that it was not the custom of her race to celebrate 
nuptials till amonth after the betrothment; that the anger of Heaven 
would be on her, unless she first performed in solitude certain re- 
ligious rites; and lastly, that if he dared to lay hands on her husband, 


254 


Westward Ho ! 

she would die so resolutely, that every drop of water should be deep 
enough to drown her, every thorn sharp enough to stab her to the 
heart, till fearing lest by demanding too much he should lose all, and 
awed too, as he had been at first, by a voice and looks which seemed to 
be, in comparison with his own, divine, Siripa bade her go back to her 
hut, promising her husband life; but promising too, that if he ever 
found the two speaking together, even for a moment, he would pour 
out on them both all the cruelty of those tortures in which the devil, 
their father, has so perfectly instructed the Indians. 

“ So Don Sebastian, being stripped of his garments, and painted 
after the Indian fashion, was set to all mean and toilsome work, amid 
the buffetings and insults of the whole village. And this, ladies, he 
endured without a murmur, ay, took delight in enduring it, as he 
would have endured things worse a thousand times, only for the sake, 
like a true lover as he was, of being near the goddess whom he wor- 
shiped, and of seeing her now and then afar off, happy enough to be 
repaid even by that for all indignities. 

“And yet, you who have loved may well guess, as I can, that ere a 
week had passed, Don Sebastian and the Lady Miranda had found 
means, in spite of all spiteful eyes, to speak to each other once and 
again; and to assure each other of their love; even to talk of escape, 
before the month’s grace should be expired. And Miranda, whose 
heart was full of courage as long as she felt her husband near her, 
went so far as to plan a means of escape which seemed possible and 
hopeful. 

“ For the youngest wife of the Cacique, who, till Miranda’s coming, 
had been his favorite, often talked with the captive, insulting and tor- 
menting her in her spite and jealousy, and receiving in return only 
gentle and conciliatory words. And one day, when the woman had 
been threatening to kill her, Miranda took courage to say, ‘ Do you 
fancy that I shall not be as glad to be rid of your husband, as you to 
be rid of me? Why kill me needlessly, when all that you require is 
to get me forth of the place? Out of sight, out of mind. When I 
am gone, your husband will soon forget me, and you will be his favorite 
as before.’ Soon, seeing that the girl was inclined to listen, she went 
on to tell her of her love to Don Sebastian, entreating and abjuring 
her, by the love which she bore the Cacique, to pity and help her ; and 
so won upon the girl, that she consented to be privy to Miranda’s 
escape, and even offered to give her an opportunity of speaking to her 
husband about it; and at last was so won over by. Miranda that she 


Bideford Bridge 255 

consented to keep all intruders out of the way, while Don Sebastian 
that very night visited Miranda in her hut. 

The hapless husband, thirsting for his love, was in that hut, be 
sure, the moment that kind darkness covered his steps; — and what 
cheer these two made of each other, when they once found themselves 
together, lovers must fancy for themselves: but so it was, that after 
many a leave-taking, there was no departure; and when the night was 
well-nigh past, Sebastian and Miranda were still talking together, as 
if they had never met before, and would never meet again. 

“ But it befell, ladies (would that I was not speaking truth, but in- 
venting, that I might have invented something merrier for your ears) , 
it befell that very night, that the young wife of the Cacique, whose 
heart was lifted up with the thought that her rival was now at last dis- 
posed of, tried all her wiles to win back her faithless husband; but in 
vain. He only answered her caresses by indifference, then by con- 
tempt, then insults, then blows (for with the Indians, woman is al- 
ways a slave, or rather a beast of burden) , and went on to draw such 
cruel comparisons between her dark skin and the glorious fairness of 
the Spanish lady, that the wretched girl, beside herself with rage, burst 
out at last with her own secret. ‘ Fool that you are to madden your- 
self about a stranger who prizes one hair of her Spanish husband’s 
head more than your whole body! Much does your new bride care 
for you ! She is at this moment in her husband’s arms ! ’ 

“ The Cacique screamed furiously to know what she meant ; and she, 
her jealousy and hate of the guiltless lady boiling over once for all, 
bade him, if he doubted her, go see for himself. 

“ What use of many words? They were taken. Love, or rather 
lust, repelled, turned in a moment into devilish hate; and the Cacique, 
summoning his Indians, bade them bind the wretched Don Sebastian 
to a tree, and there inflicted on him the lingering death to which he 
had at first been doomed. For Miranda he had more exquisite cruelty 
in store. And shall I tell it? Yes, ladies, for the honor of love and 
of Spain, and for a justification of those cruelties against the Indians 
which are so falsely imputed to our most Christian nation, it shall be 
told: he delivered the wretched lady over to the tender mercies of his 
wives; and what they were, is neither fit for me to tell, nor you to hear. 

“ The two wretched lovers cast themselves upon each other’s necks; 
drank each other’s salt tears with the last kisses; accused themselves 
as the cause of each other’s death; and then, rising above fear and 
grief, broke out into triumph at thus dying for and with each other; 


256 


Westward Ho ! 

and proclaiming themselves the martyrs of love, commended their 
souls to God, and then stepped joyfully and proudly to their doom.” 

“And what was that? ” asked half a dozen trembling voices. 

“ Don Sebastian, as I have said, was shot to death with arrows; but 
as for the Lady Miranda, the wretches themselves confessed afterward, 
when they received due vengeance for their crimes (as they did receive 
it), that after all shameful and horrible indignities, she was bound to 
a tree, and there burned slowly in her husband’s sight, stifling her 
shrieks lest they should wring his heart by one additional pang, and 
never taking her eyes, to the last, off that beloved face. And so died 
(but not unavenged) Sebastian de Hurtado and Lucia Miranda, — a 
Spanish husband and a Spanish wife.” 

The Don paused, and the ladies were silent a while; for, indeed, 
there was many a gentle tear to be dried; but at last Mrs. St. Leger 
spoke, half, it seemed, to turn off the too painful impression of the 
over-true tale, the outlines whereof may be still read in old Charlevoix. 

“ You have told a sad and a noble tale, sir, and told it well; but, 
though your story was to set forth a perfect husband, it has ended 
rather by setting forth a perfect wife.” 

“And if I have forgotten, Madam, in praising her to praise him also, 
have I not done that which would have best pleased his heroical and 
chivalrous spirit? He, be sure, would have forgotten his own virtue 
in the light of hers ; and he would have wished me, I doubt not, to do 
the same also. And beside, Madam, where ladies are the theme, who 
has time or heart to cast one thought upon their slaves? ” And the 
Don made one of his deliberate and highly-finished bows. 

“ Don Guzman is courtier enough, as far as compliments go,” said 
one of the young ladies; “ but it was hardly courtierlike of him to find 
us so sad an entertainment, upon a merry evening.” 

“ Yes,” said another; “ we must ask him for no more stories.” 

“ Or songs either,” said a third. “ I fear he knows none but about 
forsaken maidens and despairing lovers.” 

“I know nothing at all about forsaken ladies, Madam; because 
ladies are never forsaken in Spain.” 

“ Nor about lovers despairing there, I suppose? ” 

“ That good opinion of ourselves, Madam, with which you English 
are pleased to twit us now and then, always prevents so sad a state 
of mind. For myself, I have had little to do with love; but I have had 
still less to do with despair, and intend, by help of Heaven, to have 
less.” 


257 


Bidefora Bridge 

“ You are valiant, sir.” 

“ You would not have me a coward, Madam? ” and so forth. 

Now all this time Don Guzman had been talking at Rose Salterne, 
and giving her the very slightest hint, every now and then, that he was 
talking at her; till the poor girl’s face was almost crimson with 
pleasure, and she gave herself up to the spell. He loved her still ; per- 
haps he knew that she loved him: he must know some day. She felt 
now that there was no escape; she was almost glad to think that there 
was none. 

The dark, handsome, stately face; the melodious voice, with its rich 
Spanish accent; the quiet grace of the gestures; the wild pathos of the 
story ; even the measured and inflated style, as of one speaking of an- 
other and a loftier world; the chivalrous respect and admiration for 
woman, and for faithfulness to woman — what a man he was! If he 
had been pleasant heretofore, he was now enchanting. All the ladies 
round felt that, she could see, as much as she herself did; no, not quite 
as much, she hoped. She surely understood him, and felt for his 
loneliness more than any of them. Had she not been feeling for it 
through long and sad months? But it was she whom he was thinking 
of, she whom he was speaking to, all along. Oh, why had the tale 
ended so soon? She would gladly have sat and wept her eyes out till 
midnight over one melodious misery after another; but she was quite 
wise enough to keep her secret to herself ; and sat behind the rest, with 
greedy eyes and demure lips, full of strange and new happiness — or 
misery ; she knew not which to call it. 

In the meanwhile, as it was ordained, Cary could see and hear 
through the window of the hall a good deal of what was going on. 

“How that Spanish crocodile ogles the Rose!” whispered he to 
young St. Leger. 

“ What wonder? He is not the first by many a one.” 

«Ay — but — By heaven, she is making side-shots at him with those 
languishing eyes of hers, the little baggage! ” 

“ What wonder? He is not the first, say I, and won’t be the last. 
Pass the wine, man.” 

“ I have had enough; between sack and singing, my head is as mazed 
as a dizzy sheep. Let me slip out.” 

“ Not yet, man; remember you are bound for one song more.” 

So Cary, against his will, sat and sang another song; and in the 
meanwhile the party had broken up, and wandered away by twos and 
threes, among trim gardens and pleasaunces, and clipped yew-walks 


258 


Westward Ho ! 

* 1 Where west-winds with musky wing 
About the cedarn alleys fling 
Nard and cassia’s balmy smells ” 

admiring the beauty of that stately place, long since passed into other 
hands, and fallen to decay; but then (if old Prince speaks true) one 
of the noblest mansions of the west. 

At last Cary got away and out; sober, but just enough flushed with 
wine to be ready for any quarrel; and luckily for him, had not gone 
twenty yards along the great terrace before he met Lady Grenvile. 

“ Has your Ladyship seen Don Guzman? ” 

“ Yes — why, where is he? He was with me not ten minutes ago. 
You know he is going back to Spain.” 

“ Going! Has his ransom come? ” 

“ Yes, and with it a governorship in the Indies.” 

Governorship? Much good may it do the governed.” 

“ Why not, then? He is surely a most gallant gentleman.” 

“ Gallant enough — yes,” said Cary, carelessly. “ I must find him, 
and congratulate him on his honors.” 

“ I will help you to find him,” said Lady Grenvile, whose woman’s 
eye and ear had already suspected something. “ Escort me, sir.” 

“ It is but too great an honor to squire the Queen of Bideford,” said 
Cary, offering his hand. 

“ If I am your queen, sir, I must be obeyed,” answered she in a 
meaning tone. Cary took the hint, and went on chattering cheerfully 
enough. 

But Don Guzman was not to be found in garden or in pleasaunce. 

“ Perhaps,” at last said a burgher’s wife, with a toss of her head, 
“ your Ladyship may meet with him at Hankford’s oak.” 

“At Hankford’s oak? what should take him there? ” 

“Pleasant company, I reckon” (with another toss). “I heard 
him and Mistress Salterne talking about the oak just now.” 

Cary turned pale and drew in his breath. 

“ Very likely,” said Lady Grenvile, quietly. “ Will you walk with 
me so far, Mr. Cary? ” 

“ To the world’s end, if your Ladyship condescends so far.” And 
off they went. Lady Grenvile wishing that they were going anywhere 
else, but afraid to let Cary go alone; and suspecting, too, that some 
one or other ought to go. 

So they went down past the herds of deer, by a trim-kept path into 


259 


Bidefora Bridge 

the lonely dell where stood the fatal oak; and, as they went, Lady 
Grenvile, to avoid more unpleasant talk, poured into Cary’s unheeding 
ears the story (which he probably had heard fifty times before) how 
old Chief- Justice Hankford (whom some contradictory myths make 
the man who committed Prince Henry to prison for striking him on 
the bench), weary of life and sickened at the horrors and desolations 
of the wars of the Roses, went down to his house at Annery there, and 
bade his keeper shoot any man who, passing through the deer-park at 
night, should refuse to stand when challenged; and then going down 
into that glen himself, and hiding himself beneath that oak, met will- 
ingly by his keeper’s hand the death which his own dared not inflict: 
but ere the story was half done, Cary grasped Lady Grenvile’s hand 
so tightly that she gave a little shriek of pain. 

“ There they are! ” whispered he, heedless of her; and pointed to the 
oak, where, half hidden by the tall fern, stood Rose and the Spaniard. 

Her head was on his bosom. She seemed sobbing, trembling; he 
talking earnestly and passionately; but Lady Grenvile’s little shriek 
made them both look up. To turn and try to escape was to confess 
all; and the two, collecting themselves instantly, walked toward her, 
Rose wishing herself fathoms deep beneath the earth. 

“ Hind, sir,” whispered Lady Grenvile as they came up; “ you have 
seen nothing.” 

“ Madam? ” 

“ If you are not on my ground, you are on my brother’s. Obey 
me!” 

Cary bit his lip, and bowed courteously to the Don. 

“ I have to congratulate you, I hear, Senor, on your approaching 
departure.” 

“ I kiss your hands, Senor, in return: but I question whether it be 
a matter of congratulation, considering all that I leave behind.” 

“ So do I,” answered Cary, bluntly enough, and the four walked 
back to the house, Lady Grenvile taking everything for granted with 
the most charming good humor, and chatting to her three silent com- 
panions till they gained the terrace once more, and found four or five 
of the gentlemen, with Sir Richard at their head, proceeding to the 
bowling-green. 

Lady Grenvile, in an agony of fear about the quarrel which she 
knew must come, would have gladly whispered five words to her hus- 
band: but she dared not do it before the Spaniard, and dreaded too a 
faint or a scream from the Rose, whose father was of the party. So 


260 


Westward Ho ! 

she walked on with her fair prisoner, commanding Cary to escort them 
in, and the Spaniard to go to the bowling-green. 

Cary obeyed: but he gave her the slip the moment she was inside the 
door, and then darted off to the gentlemen. 

His heart was on fire: all his old passion for the Rose had flashed 
up again at the sight of her with a lover; — and that lover a Spaniard! 
He would cut his throat for him, if steel could do it! Only he recol- 
lected that Salterne was there, and shrank from exposing Rose; and 
shrank too, as every gentleman should, from making a public quarrel 
in another man’s house. Never mind. Where there was a will there 
was a way. He could get him into a corner, and quarrel with him 
privately about the cut of his beard, or the color of his ribbon. So in 
he went; and, luckily or unluckily, found standing together apart 
from the rest, Sir Richard, the Don, and young St. Leger. 

“ Well, Don Guzman, you have given us wine-bibbers the slip this 
afternoon. I hope you have been well employed in the meanwhile? ” 

“ Delightfully to myself, Senor,” said the Don, who, enraged at be- 
ing interrupted, if not discovered, was as ready to fight as Cary, but 
disliked of course an explosion as much as he did; “ and to others, I 
doubt not.” 

“ So the ladies say,” quoth St. Leger. “ He has been making them 
all cry with one of his stories, and robbing us meanwhile of the pleasure 
we had hoped for from some of his Spanish songs.” 

“The devil take Spanish songs!” said Cary, in a low voice, but 
loud enough for the Spaniard. Don Guzman clapped his hand on his 
sword-hilt instantly. 

“Lieutenant Cary,” said Sir Richard in a stern voice; “ the wine 
has surely made you forget yourself ! ” 

“As sober as yourself, most worshipful knight; but if you want a 
Spanish song, here’s one; and a very scurvy one it is, like its subject — 

‘‘Don Desperado 
Walked on the Prado, 

And there he met his enemy. 

He pulled out a knife, a, 

And let out his life, a, 

And fled for his own across the sea.” 

And he bowed low to the Spaniard. 

The insult was too gross to require any spluttering. 

“ Senor Cary, we meet? ” 


261 


Bidefora Bridge 

“ I thank your quick apprehension, Don Guzman Maria Magdalena 
Sotomayor de Soto. When, where, and with what weapons? ” 

“ For God’s sake, gentlemen! Nephew Arthur, Cary is your guest; 
do you know the meaning of this? ” 

St. Leger was silent. Cary answered for him. 

“An old Irish quarrel, I assure you, sir. A matter of years’ stand- 
ing. In unlacing the Senor’s helmet, the evening that he was taken 
prisoner, I was unlucky enough to twitch his mustachios. You recol- 
lect the fact, of course, Senor? ” 

“Perfectly,” said the Spaniard; and then, half amused and half 
pleased, in spite of his bitter wrath, at Cary’s quickness and delicacy 
in shielding Rose, he bowed, and 

“And it gives me much pleasure to find that he whom I trust to have 
the pleasure of killing to-morrow morning is a gentleman whose nice 
sense of honor renders him thoroughly worthy of the sword of a 
De Soto.” 

Cary bowed in return, while Sir Richard, who saw plainly enough 
that the excuse was feigned, shrugged his shoulders. 

“ What weapons, Senor? ” asked Will again. 

“ I should have preferred a horse and pistols,” said Don Guzman 
after a moment, half to himself, and in Spanish; “ they make surer 
work of it than bodkins;” but (with a sigh and one of his smiles) 
“ beggars must not be choosers.” 

“ The best horse in my stable is at your service, Senor,” said Sir 
Richard Grenvile instantly. 

“And in mine also, Senor,” said Cary; “and I shall be happy to 
allow you a week to train him, if he does not answer at first to a 
Spanish hand.” 

“ You forget in your courtesy, gentle sir, that the insult being with 
me, the time lies with me also. We wipe it off to-morrow morning 
with simple rapiers and daggers. Who is your second? ” 

“ Mr. Arthur St. Leger here, Senor: who is yours? ” 

The Spaniard felt himself alone in the world for one moment; and 
then answered with another of his smiles, 

“Your nation possesses the soul of honor. He who fights an 
Englishman needs no second.” 

“And he who fights among Englishmen will always find one,” said 
Sir Richard. “ I am the fittest second for my guest.” 

“ You only add one more obligation, illustrious cavalier, to a two- 
years’ prodigality of favors, which I shall never be able to repay.” 


262 


Westward Ho ! 

“ But, Nephew Arthur,” said Grenvile, “ you cannot surely be 
second against your father’s guest, and your own uncle.” 

“ I cannot help it, sir; I am bound by an oath, as Will can tell you. 
I suppose you won’t think it necessary to let me blood? ” 

“You half deserve it, sirrah!” said Sir Richard, who was very 
angry: but the Don interposed quickly. 

“Heaven forbid, Senors! We are no French duellists, who are 
mad enough to make four or six lives answer for the sins of two. This 
gentleman and I have quarrel enough between us, I suspect, to make 
a right bloody encounter.” 

“ The dependence is good enough, sir,” said Cary, licking his sinful 
lips at the thought. “ Very well. Rapiers and shirts at three to- 
morrow morning — Is that the bill of fare? Ask Sir Richard where, 
Atty? It is against punctilio now for me to speak to him till after I 
am killed.” 

“ On the sands opposite. The tide will be out at three. And now, 
gallant gentlemen, let us join the bowlers.” 

And so they went back and spent a merry evening, all except poor 
Rose, who, ere she went back, had poured all her sorrows into Lady 
Grenvile’s ear. For the kind woman, knowing that she was mother- 
less and guileless, carried her off into Mrs. St. Leger’s chamber, and 
there entreated her to tell the truth, and heaped her with pity, but with 
no comfort. For, indeed, what comfort was there to give? 

Three o’clock, upon a still pure bright Midsummer morning. A 
broad and yellow sheet of ribbed tide-sands, through which the shal- 
low river wanders from one hill-foot to the other, whispering round 
dark knolls of rock, and under low tree-fringed cliffs, and banks of 
golden broom. A mile below, the long bridge and the white walled 
town, all sleeping pearly in the soft haze, beneath a cloudless vault of 
blue. The white glare of dawn, which last night hung high in the 
northwest, has traveled now to the northeast, and above the wooded 
wall of the hills the sky is flushing with rose and amber. 

A long line of gulls goes wailing up inland; the rooks from 
Annery come cawing and sporting round the comer at Land-cross, 
while high above them four or five herons flap solemnly along to find 
their breakfast on the shallows. The pheasants and partridges are 
clucking merrily in the long wet grass ; every copse and hedgerow rings 
with the voice of birds: but the lark, who has been singing since mid- 
night in the “ blank height of the dark,” suddenly hushes his carol and 


263 


Biaefora Bridge 

drops headlong among the com, as a broad-winged buzzard swings 
from some wooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high- 
poised above the heavenward songster. The air is full of perfume; 
sweet clover, new mown hay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty 
scent of seaweed wreaths and fresh wet sand. Glorious day, glori- 
ous place, “ bridal of earth and sky,” decked well with bridal garlands, 
bridal perfumes, bridal songs, — What do those four cloaked figures 
there by the river brink, a dark spot on the fair face of the summer 
morn? 

Yet one is as cheerful as if he too, like all nature round him, were 
going to a wedding; and that is Will Cary. He has been bathing 
down below, to cool his brain and steady his hand; and he intends to 
stop Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto’s wooing for 
ever and a day. The Spaniard is in a very different mood; fierce and 
haggard, he is pacing up and down the sand. He intends to kill Will 
Cary; but then? Will he be the nearer to Rose by doing so? Can 
he stay in Bideford? Will she go with him? Shall he stoop to stain 
his family by marrying a burgher’s daughter? It is a confused, all 
but desperate business; and Don Guzman is certain but of one thing, 
that he is madly in love with this fair witch, and that if she refuse him, 
then, rather than see her accept another man, he would kill her with 
his own hands. 

Sir Richard Grenvile too is in no very pleasant humor, as St. Leger 
soon discovers, when the two seconds begin whispering over their 
arrangements. 

“ We cannot have either of them killed, Arthur.” 

“ Mr. Cary swears he will kill the Spaniard, sir.” 

“ He shan’t. The Spaniard is my guest. I am answerable for him 
to Leigh, and for his ransom too. And how can Leigh accept the 
ransom if the man is not given up safe and sound? They won’t pay 
for a dead carcass, boy! The man’s life is worth two hundred 
pounds.” 

“A very bad bargain, sir, for those who pay the said two hundred 
for the rascal ; but what if he kills Cary ? ” 

“ Worse still. Cary must not be killed. I am very angry with 
him, but he is too good a lad to be lost; and his father would never for- 
give us. We must strike up their swords at the first scratch.” 

“ It will make them very mad, sir.” 

“ Hang them! let them fight us then, if they don’t like our counsel. 
It must be, Arthur.’* 


264 


Westward Ho I 

“ Be sure, sir,” said Arthur, “ that whatsoever you shall command, 
I shall perform. It is only too great an honor to a young man as I 
am, to find myself in the same duel with your worship, and to have 
the advantage of your wisdom and experience.” 

Sir Richard smiles, and says — “ Now, gentlemen! are you ready? ” 

The Spaniard pulls out a little crucifix, and kisses it devoutly, smit- 
ing on his breast; crosses himself two or three times, and says — 
“ Most willingly, Senor.” 

Cary kisses no crucifix, but says a prayer nevertheless. 

Cloaks and doublets are tossed off, the men placed, the rapiers 
measured hilt and point; Sir Richard and St. Leger place themselves 
right and left of the combatants, facing each other, the points of their 
drawn swords on the sand. Cary and the Spaniard stand for a mo- 
ment quite upright, their sword-arms stretched straight before them, 
holding the long rapier horizontally, the left hand clutching the dagger 
close to their breasts. So they stand eye to eye, with clenched teeth 
and pale crushed lips, while men might count a score; St. Leger can 
hear the beating of his own heart; Sir Richard is praying inwardly 
that no life may be lost. Suddenly there is a quick turn of Cary’s 
wrist, and a leap forward. The Spaniard’s dagger flashes, and the 
raj>ier is turned aside; Cary springs six feet back as the Spaniard 
rushes on him in turn. Parry, thrust, parry — the steel rattles, the 
sparks fly, the men breathe fierce and loud; the devil’s game is begun 
in earnest. 

Five minutes have the two had instant death a short six inches off 
from those wild sinful hearts of theirs, and not a scratch has been 
given. Yes! the Spaniard’s rapier passes under Cary’s left arm; he 
bleeds. 

“A hit! a hit! Strike up, Atty!” and the swords are struck up 
instantly. 

Cary, nettled by the smart, tries to close with his foe, but the 
seconds cross their swords before him. 

“ It is enough, gentlemen. Don Guzman’s honor is satisfied! ” 

“ But not my revenge, Senor,” says the Spaniard, with a frown. 
“ This duel is a Voutrance , on my part; and, I believe, on Mr. Cary’s 
also.” 

“ By heaven it is! ” says Will, trying to jmsh past. “ Let me go, 
Arthur St. Leger; one of us must down. Let me go, I say! ” 

“ If you stir, Mr. Cary, you have to do with Richard Grenvile!” 
thunders the lion voice. “ I am angry enough with you for having 







The duel upon the sands 






























4 




• nov i a !920 

CCIK146146 



















I 











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« 

























Bidefora Bridge 265 

brought on this duel at all. Don’t provoke me still further, young 
hot-head! ” 

Cary stops sulkily. 

“ You do not know all, Sir Richard, or you would not speak in this 
way” 

“ I do, sir, all: and I shall have the honor of talking it over with 
Don Guzman myself.” 

“ Hey? ” said the Spaniard. “ You came here as my second, Sir 
Richard, as I understood: but not as my counsellor.” 

“Arthur, take your man away! Cary! obey me as you would your 
father, sir! Can you not trust Richard Grenvile?” 

“ Come away, for God’s sake! ” said poor Arthur, dragging Cary’s 
sword from him; “ Sir Richard must know best! ” 

So Cary is led off sulking, and Sir Richard turns to the Spaniard, 

“And now, Don Guzman, allow me, though much against my will, 
to speak to you as a friend to a friend. You will pardon me if I say 
that I cannot but have seen last night’s devotion to ” 

“ You will be pleased, Senor, not to mention the name of any lady 
to whom I may have shown devotion. I am not accustomed to have 
my little affairs talked over by any unbidden counsellors.” 

“ Well, Senor, if you take offense, you take that which is not given. 
Only I warn you, with all apologies for any seeming forwardness, that 
the quest on which you seem to be, is one on which you will not be 
allowed to proceed.” 

“ And who will stop me? ” asked the Spaniard, with a fierce oath. 

“ You are not aware, illustrious Senor,” said Sir Richard, parrying 
the question, “ that our English laity look upon mixed marriages with 
full as much dislike as your own ecclesiastics.” 

“ Marriage, sir? Who gave you leave to mention that word to 
me? ” 

Sir Richard’s brow darkened; the Spaniard, in his insane pride, had 
forced upon the good knight a suspicion which was not really just. 

“ Is it possible, then, Senor Don Guzman, that I am to have the 
shame of mentioning a baser word? ” 

“ Mention what you will, sir. All words are the same to me; for, 
just or unjust, I shall answer them alike only by my sword.” 

“ You will do no such thing, sir. You forget that I am your 
host.” 

“And do you suppose that you have therefore a right to insult me? 
Stand on your guard, sir! ” 


266 Westward Ho ! 

Grenvile answered by slapping his own rapier home into the sheath 
with a quiet smile. 

“ Senor Don Guzman must be well enough aware of who Richard 
Grenvile is, to know that he may claim the right of refusing duel to 
any man, if he shall so think fit.” 

“ Sir! ” cried the Spaniard with an oath, “ this is too much! Do 
you dare to hint that I am unworthy of your sword? Know, insolent 
Englishman, I am not merely a De Soto, — though that, by St. J ames, 
were enough for you or any man. I am a Sotomayor, a Mendoza, a 
Bovadilla, a Losada, a — sir! I have blood royal in my veins, and you 
dare to refuse my challenge? ” 

“ Richard Grenvile can show quarterings, probably, against even 
Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto, or against (with 
no offense to the unquestioned nobility of your pedigree) the bluest 
blood of Spain. But he can show, moreover, thank God, a reputation 
which raises him as much above the imputation of cowardice, as it does 
above that of discourtesy. If you think fit, Senor, to forget what you 
have just, in very excusable anger, vented, and to return with me, you 
will find me still, as ever, your most faithful servant and host. If 
otherwise, you have only to name whither you wish your mails to be 
sent, and I shall, with unfeigned sorrow, obey your commands con- 
cerning them.” 

The Spaniard bowed stiffly, answered, “ To the nearest tavern, 
Senor,” and then strode away. His baggage was sent thither. He 
took a boat down to Appledore that very afternoon, and vanished, 
none knew whither. A very courteous note to Lady Grenvile, enclos- 
ing the jewel which he had been used to wear round his neck, was the 
only memorial he left behind him: except, indeed, the scar on Cary’s 
arm, and poor Rose’s broken heart. 

Now county towns are scandalous places at best; and though all 
parties tried to keep the duel secret, yet, of course, before noon all 
Bideford knew what had happened, and a great deal more; and what 
was even worse, Rose, in an agony of terror, had seen Sir Richard 
Grenvile enter her father’s private room, and sit there closeted with 
him for an hour and more; and when he went, up-stairs came old 
Salterne, with his stick in his hand, and after rating her soundly for 
far worse than a flirt, gave her (I am sorry to have to say it, but such 
was the mild fashion of paternal rule in those times, even over such 
daughters as Lady J ane Grey, if Roger Ascham is to be believed) such 
a beating that her poor sides were black and blue for many a day; 


267 


Bidefora Bridge 

and then putting her on a pillion behind him, carried her off twenty 
miles to her old prison at Stow Mill, commanding her aunt to tame 
down her saucy blood with bread of affliction and water of affliction. 
Which commands were willingly enough fulfilled by the old dame, 
who had always borne a grudge against Rose for being rich while she 
was poor, and pretty while her daughter was plain; so that between 
flouts, and sneers, and watchings, and pretty open hints that she was a 
disgrace to her family, and no better than she should be, the poor 
innocent child watered her couch with her tears for a fortnight or 
more, stretching out her hands to the wide Atlantic, and calling wildly 
to Don Guzman to return and take her where he would, and she would 
live for him and die for him; and perhaps she did not call in vain. 



>3ir "Walter Raleigh , K.t. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

How (he “Golden Hind" came home attain. 

“The spirits of your fathers 
Shall start from every wave ; 

For the deck it was their field of fame, 

And ocean was their grave.” 

Campbell. 

“ So you see, my dear Mrs. Hawkins, having the silver, as your own 
eyes show you, beside the ores of lead, manganese, and copper, and 
above all this gossan (as the Cornish call it) , which I suspect to be not 
merely the matrix of the ore, but also the very crude form and materia 
prima of all metals — you mark me? — If my recipes, which I had from 
Doctor Dee, succeed only half so well as I expect, then I refine out 
the Luna, the silver, lay it by, and transmute the remaining ores into 
Sol, gold. Whereupon Peru and Mexico become superfluities, and 
England the mistress of the globe. Strange, no doubt; distant, no 
doubt : but possible, my dear madam, possible ! ” 

“And what good to you if it be, Mr. Gilbert? If you could find a 
philosopher’s stone to turn sinners into saints, now: — but nought save 
God’s grace can do that: and that last seems ofttimes over long in 
coming.” And Mrs. Hawkins sighed. 

“ But indeed, my dear madam, conceive now. — The Comb Martin 
mine thus becomes a gold mine, perhaps inexhaustible; yields me 
wherewithal to carry out my northwest patent ; meanwhile my brother 
Humphrey holds Newfoundland, and builds me fresh ships year by 
year (for the forests of pine are boundless) for my China voyage.” 

“ Sir Humphrey has better thoughts in his dear heart than gold, 
Mr. Adrian ; a very close and gracious walker he has been this seven 
year. I wish my Captain John were so too.” 

“And how do you know I have nought better in my mind’s eye than 
gold? Or, indeed, what better could I have? Is not gold the 
Spaniard’s strength — the very mainspring of Antichrist? By gold 
only, therefore, can we out-wrestle him. You shake your head: but 
say, dear Madam (for gold England must have), which is better, to 
make gold bloodlessly at home, or take it bloodily abroad? ” 


269 


The •‘Golden Hina” 

“ Oh, Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Gilbert! is it not written, that those who 
make haste to be rich, pierce themselves through with many sorrows? 
Oh, Mr. Gilbert! God’s blessing is not on it all.” 

“ Not on you, madam? Be sure that brave Captain John Hawkins’s 
star told me a different tale, when I cast his nativity for him. — Born 
under stormy planets, truly: but under right royal and fortunate 
ones.” 

u Ah, Mr. Adrian! I am a simple body, and you a great philoso- 
pher: but I hold there is no star for the seaman like the star of Bethle- 
hem ; and that goes with ‘ peace on earth and good will to men,’ and not 
with such arms as that, Mr. Adrian. I can’t abide to look upon 
them.” 

And she pointed up to one of the bosses of the ribbed oak-roof, on 
which was emblazoned the fatal crest which Clarencieux Hervey had 
granted years before to her husband, the “ Demi-Moor proper, 
bound.” 

“Ah, Mr. Gilbert! since first he went to Guinea after those poor 
negroes, little lightness has my heart known; and the very day that 
that crest was put up in our grand new house, as the parson read the 
first lesson, there was this text in it, Mr. Gilbert, ‘Woe to him that 
buildeth his house by iniquity, and his chambers by wrong. Shalt 
thou live because thou closest thyself in cedar? ’ And it went into my 
ears like fire, Mr. Gilbert, and into my heart like lead: and when the 
parson went on, ‘ Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment 
and justice? Then it was well with him,’ I thought of good old Cap- 
tain Will; and — I tell you, Mr. Gilbert, those negroes are on my soul 
from morning until night! We are all mighty grand now, and money 
comes in fast: but the Lord will require the blood of them at our hands 
yet, He will ! ” 

“ My dearest madam, who can prosper more than you? If your 
husband copied the Dons too closely once or twice in the matter of 
those negroes (which I do not deny) , was he not punished at once when 
he lost ships, men, all but life, at St. Juan d’Ulloa? ” 

“Ay, yes,” she said; “ and that did give me a bit of comfort, espe- 
cially when the Queen, God save her tender heart! was so sharp with 
him for pity of the poor wretches: but it has not mended him. He is 
growing fast like the rest now, Mr. Gilbert, greedy to win, and 
niggardly to spend (God forgive him!) and always fretting and 
plotting for some new gain, and envying and grudging at Drake, and 
all who are deeper in the snare of prosperity than he is. Gold, gold. 


270 


Westward Ho ! 

nothing but gold in every mouth — there it is! Ah! I mind when 
Plymouth was a quiet little God-fearing place as God could smile 
upon: but ever since my John, and Sir Francis, and poor Mr. Oxen- 
ham found out the way to the Indies, it’s been a sad place. Not a 
sailor’s wife, but is crying ‘ Give, give,’ like the daughters of the 
horse-leech; and every woman must drive her husband out across seas 
to bring her home money to squander on hoods and farthingales, and 
go mincing with outstretched necks, and wanton eyes ; and they will 
soon learn to do worse than that, for the sake of gain. But the Lord’s 
hand will be against their tires and crisping-pins, their mufflers and 
farthingales, as it was against the Jews of old. Ah, dear me! ” 

The two interlocutors in this dialogue were sitting in a low oak- 
paneled room in Plymouth town, handsomely enough furnished, 
adorned with carving and gilding and coats of arms, and noteworthy 
for many strange knickknacks, Spanish gold and silver vessels on the 
sideboard ; strange birds and skins, and charts and rough drawings of 
coast which hung about the room; while over the fireplace, above the 
portrait of old Captain Will Hawkins, pet of Henry the Eighth, hung 
the Spanish ensign which Captain John had taken in fair fight at Rio 
de la Hacha fifteen years before, when, with two hundred men, he 
seized the town in despite of ten hundred Spanish soldiers, and watered 
his ship triumphantly at the enemy’s wells. 

The gentleman was a tall fair man, with a broad and lofty fore- 
head, wrinkled with study, and eyes weakened by long poring over 
the crucible and the furnace. 

The lady had once been comely enough: but she was aged and worn, 
as sailors’ wives are apt to be, by many sorrows. Many a sad day had 
she had already; for although John Hawkins, port-admiral of 
Plymouth, and Patriarch of British shipbuilders, was a faithful hus- 
band enough, and as ready to forgive as he was to quarrel, yet he was 
obstinate and ruthless, and in spite of his religiosity ( for all men were 
religious then) was by no means a “ consistent walker.” 

And sadder days were in store for her, poor soul. Nine years hence 
she would be asked to name her son’s brave new ship, and would 
christen it The Repentance, giving no reason, in her quiet steadfast 
way (so says her son Sir Richard) but that “ Repentance was the best 
ship in which we could sail to the harbor of heaven ” ; and she would 
hear that Queen Elizabeth, complaining of the name for an unlucky 
one, had rechristened her The Dainty, not without some by-quip, per- 
haps, at the character of her most dainty captain, Richard Hawkins, 


The “Golden Hina“ m 

the complete seaman and Euphuist afloat, of whom, perhaps, more 
hereafter. 

With sad eyes Mrs. (then Lady) Hawkins would see that gallant 
bark sail W estward-ho, to go the world around, as many another ship 
sailed ; and then wait, as many a mother beside had waited, for the sail 
which never returned; till dim and uncertain, came tidings of her boy 
fighting for four days three great Armadas (for the coxcomb had his 
father’s heart in him after all) , a prisoner, wounded, ruined, languish- 
ing for weary years in Spanish prisons. And a sadder day than that 
was in store, when a gallant fleet should round the Ram Head, not 
with drum and trumpet, but with solemn minute guns, and all flags 
half-mast high, to tell her that her terrible husband’s work was done, 
his terrible heart broken by failure and fatigue, and his body laid by 
Drake’s, beneath the far off tropic seas. 

And if, at the close of her eventful life, one gleam of sunshine 
opened for a while, when her boy Richard returned to her bosom from 
his Spanish prison, to be knighted for his valor, and made a Privy 
Councillor for his wisdom; yet soon, how soon, was the old cloud to 
close in again above her, until her weary eyes should open in the light 
of Paradise. For that son dropped dead, some say at the very coun- 
cil-table, leaving behind him nought but broken fortunes, and huge 
purposes which never were fulfilled; and the stormy star of that bold 
race was set for ever, and Lady Hawkins bowed her weary head and 
died, the groan of those stolen negroes ringing in her ears, having lived 
long enough to see her husband’s youthful sin become a national in- 
stitution, and a national curse for generations yet unborn. 

I know not why she opened her heart that night to Adrian Gilbert, 
with a frankness which she would hardly have dared to use to her own 
family. Perhaps it was that Adrian, like his great brothers, Hum- 
phrey and Raleigh, was a man full of all lofty and delicate enthusi- 
asms, tender and poetical, such as women cling to when their hearts 
are lonely; but so it was; and Adrian, half ashamed of his own am- 
bitious dreams, sate looking at her a while in silence; and then — 

“ The Lord be with you, dearest lady. Strange, how you women 
sit at home to love and suffer, while we men rush forth to break our 
hearts and yours against rocks of our own seeking! Ah well! were 
it not for Scripture, I should have thought that Adam, rather than 
Eve, had been the one who plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree.” 

“We women, I fear, did the deed nevertheless; for we bear the 
doom of it our lives long.” 


272 


Westward Ho ! 

“ You always remind me, madam, of my dear Mrs. Leigh of Bur- 
rough, and her counsels.” 

“ Do you see her often? I hear of her as one of the Lord’s most 
precious vessels.” 

“ I would have done more ere now than see her,” said he with a 
blush, “ had she allowed me: but she lives only for the memory of her 
husband and the fame of her noble sons.” 

As he spoke the door opened, and in walked, wrapped in his rough 
sea-gown, none other than one of those said noble sons. 

Adrian turned pale. 

“Amyas Leigh! What brings you hither? How fares my brother? 
Where is the ship? ” 

“ Your brother is well, Mr. Gilbert. The Golden Hind is gone on 
to Dartmouth, with Mr. ITayes. I came ashore here, meaning to go 
north to Bideford, ere I went to London. I called at Drake’s just 
now, but he was away.” 

“ The Golden Hind? What brings her home so soon? ” 

“ Yet welcome ever, sir,” said Mrs. Hawkins. “ This is a great 
surprise, though. Captain John did not look for you till next year.” 

Amyas was silent. 

“ Something is wrong! ” cried Adrian. “ Speak! ” 

Amyas tried, but could not. 

“ Will you drive a man mad, sir? Has the adventure failed? You 
said my brother was well.” 

“ He is well.” 

“ Then what — Why do you look at me in that fashion, sir? ” and 
springing up, Adrian rushed forward, and held the candle to Amyas’s 
face. 

Amyas’s lip quivered, as he laid his hand on Adrian’s shoulder. 

“ Your great and glorious brother, sir, is better bestowed than in 
settling Newfoundland.” 

“ Dead? ” shrieked Adrian. 

“ He is with the God whom he served! ” 

“ He was always with Him, like Enoch: parable me no parables, 
if you love me, sir! ” 

“And, like Enoch, he was not; for God took him.” 

Adrian clasped his hands over his forehead, and leaned against the 
table. 

“ Go on, sir, go on. God will give me strength to hear all.” 

And gradually Amyas opened to Adrian that tragic story, which 


278 


The^Ooiaen Hind 6 " 

Mr. Hayes has long ago told far too well to allow a second edition of 
it from me; of the unruliness of the men, ruffians, as I said before, 
caught up at haphazard; of conspiracies to carry off the ships, 
plunder of fishing vessels, desertions multiplying daily; licenses from 
the General to the lazy and fearful to return home: till Adrian broke 
out with a groan — 

“ From him? Conspired against him? Deserted from him? 
Dotards, buzzards? Where would they have found such another 
leader? ” 

“ Your illustrious brother, sir,” said Amyas, “ if you will pardon 
me, was a very great philosopher, but not so much of a general.” 

“ General, sir? Where was braver man? ” 

“ Not on God’s earth: but that does not make a general, sir. If 
Cortes had been brave and no more, Mexico would have been Mexico 
still. The truth is, sir, Cortes, like my Captain Drake, knew when to 
hang a man; and your great brother did not.” 

Amyas, as I suppose, was right. Gilbert was a man who could be 
angry enough at baseness or neglect, but who was too kindly to punish 
it ; he was one who could form the wisest and best digested plans, but 
who could not stoop to that hail-fellow-well-met drudgery among his 
subordinates which has been the talisman of great captains. 

Then Amyas went on to tell the rest of his story; the setting sail 
from St. John’s to discover the southward coast; Sir Humphrey’s 
chivalrous determination to go in the little Squirrel of only ten tons, 
and “ overcharged with nettings, fights, and small ordnance,” not only 
because she was more fit to examine the creeks, but because he had 
heard of some taunt against him among the men, that he was afraid of 
the sea. 

After that, woe on woe; how, seven days after they left Cape Raz, 
their largest ship, the Delight , after she had “ most part of the night ” 
(I quote Hayes), “ like the swan that singeth before her death, con- 
tinued in sounding of trumpets, drums, and fifes, also winding of the 
cornets and hautboys, and, in the end of their jollity, left off with the 
battle and doleful knells,” struck the next day (the Golden Hind and 
the Squirrel sheering off just in time) upon unknown shoals; where 
were lost all but fourteen, and among them Frank’s philosopher friend, 
poor Budasus ; and those who escaped, after all horrors of cold and 
famine, were cast on shore in Newfoundland. How, worn out with 
hunger and want of clothes, the crews of the two remaining ships per- 
suaded Sir Humphrey to sail toward England on the 31st of August; 


274 


Westward Ho I 

and on “ that very instant, even in winding about,” beheld close along- 
side “ a very lion in shape, hair, and color, not swimming, but slid- 
ing on the water, with his whole body; who passed along, turning his 
head to and fro, yawning and gaping wide, with ugly demonstration 
of long teeth and glaring eyes; and to bid us farewell (coming right 
against the Hind) he sent forth a horrible voice, roaring or bellowing 
as doth a lion.” “ What opinion others had thereof, and chiefly the 
General himself, I forbear to deliver; but he took it for bonum omen, 
rejoicing that he was to war against such an enemy, if it were the 
devil.” 

“And the devil it was, doubtless,” said Adrian, “ the roaring lion 
who goes about seeking whom he may devour.” 

“ He has not got your brother, at least,” quoth Amyas. 

“No,” rejoined Mrs. Hawkins (smile not, reader, for those were 
days in which men believed in the devil) ; “ he roared for joy to think 
how many poor souls would be left still in heathen darkness by Sir 
Humphrey’s death. God be with that good knight, and send all 
mariners where he is now! ” 

Then Amyas told the last scene; how, when they were off the Azores, 
the storms came on heavier than ever, with “ terrible seas, breaking 
short and pyramid- wise,” till, on the 9th September, the tiny Squirrel 
nearly foundered and yet recovered; “ and the General, sitting abaft 
with a book in his hand, cried out to us in the Hind so oft as we did ap- 
proach within hearing, 4 We are as near heaven by sea as by land,’ 
reiterating the same speech, well beseeming a soldier resolute in Jesus 
Christ, as I can testify he was. 

“ The same Monday, about twelve of the clock, or not long after, 
the frigate (the Squirrel) being ahead of us in the Golden Hind , sud- 
denly her lights were out; and withal our watch cried, the General 
was cast away, which was true; for in that moment, the frigate was 
devoured and swallowed up of the sea.” And so ended (I have used 
Hayes’ own words) Amyas Leigh’s story. 

“ Oh, my brother! my brother! ” moaned poor Adrian; “ the glory 
of his house, the glory of Devon ! ” 

“Ah! what will the Queen say? ” asked Mrs. Hawkins through her 
tears. 

“ Tell me,” asked Adrian, “ had he the jewel on when he died? ” 

“ The Queen’s jewel? He always wore that, and his own posy too, 
‘ Mutare vel timere sperno.’ He wore it; and he lived it.” 

“Ay,” said Adrian, “ the same to the last! ” 


The "Golden Hina** 275 

“ Not quite that,” said Amy as. “ He was a meeker man latterly 
than he used to be. As he said himself once, a better refiner than any 
whom he had on board had followed him close all the seas over, and 
purified him in the fire. And gold seven times tried he was, when 
God, having done His work in him, took him home at last.” 

And so the talk ended. There was no doubt that the expedition 
had been an utter failure; Adrian was a ruined man; and Amyas had 
lost his venture. 

Adrian rose, and begged leave to retire; he must collect himself. 

“ Poor gentleman! ” said Mrs. Hawkins; “ it is little else he has left 
to collect.” 

“ Or I either,” said Amyas. “ I was going to ask you to lend me 
one of your son’s shirts, and five pounds to get myself and my men 
home.” 

“Five? Fifty, Mr. Leigh! God forbid that John Hawkins’s 
wife should refuse her last penny to a distressed mariner, and he a 
gentleman born. But you must eat and drink.” 

“ It’s more than I have done for many a day worth speaking of.” 
And Amyas sat down in his rags to a good supper, while Mrs. 
Hawkins told him all the news which she could of his mother, whom 
Adrian Gilbert had seen a few months before in London; and then 
went on, naturally enough, to the Bideford news. 

“And by the by, Captain Leigh, I’ve sad news for you from your 
place; and I had it from one who was there at the time. You must 

know a Spanish captain, a prisoner ” 

“ What, the one I sent home from Smerwick? ” 

“ You sent? Mercy on us ! Then, perhaps, you’ve heard ” 

“ How can I have heard? What? ” 

“ That he’s gone off, the villain? ” 

“ Without paying his ransom? ” 

“ I can’t say that; but there’s a poor innocent young maid gone off 
with him, one Salterne’s daughter — the Popish serpent! ” 

“ Rose Salteme, the mayor’s daughter, the Rose of Torridge! ” 

“ That’s her. Bless your dear soul, what ails you? ” 

Amyas had dropped back in his seat as if he had been shot; but he 
recovered himself before kind Mrs. Hawkins could rush to the cup- 
board for cordials. 

“ You’ll forgive me, Madam; but I’m weak from the sea; and your 
good ale has turned me a bit dizzy, I think.” 

“Ay, yes, ’tis too, too heavy, till you’ve been on shore a while. Try 


276 


Westward Ho I 

the aqua vitas; my Captain John has it right good; and a bit too fond 
of it too, poor dear soul, between whiles, Heaven forgive him ! ” 

So she poured some strong brandy and water down Amyas’s throat, 
in spite of his refusals, and sent him to bed, but not to sleep; and after 
a night of tossing, he started for Bideford, having obtained the means 
for so doing from Mrs. Hawkins. 



♦ ELIZABETH ♦ 

QUEEN OF ENGLAND 


I 


CHAPTER XIV. 

How 5&Tv&tion Yeo slew Hie Kin^of Hie 
Cubbings. 

“Ignorance and evil, even in full flight, deal terrible back-handed strokes at 
their pursuers.” — H elps. 

Now I am sorry to say, for the honor of my country, that it was by 
no means a safe thing in those days to travel from Plymouth to the 
north of Devon; because, to get to your journey’s end, unless you 
were minded to make a circuit of many miles, you must needs pass 
through the territory of a foreign and hostile potentate, who had many 
times ravaged the dominions, and defeated the forces of her Majesty 
Queen Elizabeth, and was named (behind his back at least) the King 
of the Gubbings. “ So now I dare call them,” says Fuller, “ secured 
by distance, which one of more valor durst not do to their face, for 
fear their fury fall upon him. Yet hitherto have I met with none who 
could render a reason of their name. We call the shavings of fish 
(which are little worth) gubbings; and sure it is that they are sensible 
that the word importeth shame and disgrace. 

“As for the suggestion of my worthy and learned friend, Mr. 
Joseph Maynard, that such as did 4 inhabitare montes gibberosos,’ were 
called Gubbings, such will smile at the ingenuity who dissent from the 
truth of the etymology. 

“ I have read of an England beyond Wales, but the Gubbings land 
is a Scythia within England, and they pure heathens therein. It lieth 
nigh Brent. For in the edge of Dartmoor it is reported that, some 
two hundred years since, two bad women, being with child, fled thither 
to hide themselves; to whom certain lewd fellows resorted, and this 
was their first original. They are a peculiar of their own making, 
exempt from bishop, archdeacon, and all authority, either ecclesiastical 
or civil. They live in cots (rather holes than houses) like swine, hav- 
ing all in common, multiplied without marriage into many hundreds. 
Their language is the dross of the dregs of the vulgar Devonian; and 
the more learned a man is, the worse he can understand them. Dur- 
ing our civil wars no soldiers were quartered upon them, for fear of 


278 


Westward Ho ! 

being quartered amongst them. Their wealth consisteth in other 
men’s goods; they live by stealing the sheep on the moors; and vain 
is it for any to search their houses, being a work beneath the pains of 
any sheriff, and above the power of any constable. Such is their fleet- 
ness, they will outrun many horses; vivaciousness, they outlive most 
men ; living in an ignorance of luxury, the extinguisher of life. They 
hold together like bees ; offend one, and all will revenge his quarrel. 

“ But now I am informed that they begin to be civilized, and tender 
their children to baptism, and return to be men, yea, Christians again. 
I hope no civil people amongst us will turn barbarians, now these 
barbarians begin to be civilized.” 1 

With which quip against the Anabaptists of his day, Fuller ends his 
story; and I leave him to set forth how Amyas, in fear of these same 
Scythians and heathens, rode out of Plymouth on a right good horse, 
in his full suit of armor, carrying lance and sword, and over and 
above two great dags, or horse-pistols; and behind him Salvation Yeo, 
and five or six north Devon men (who had served with him in Ireland, 
and were returning on furlough), clad in head-pieces and quilted 
jerkins, each man with his pike and sword, and Yeo with arquebuse 
and match, while two sumpter ponies carried the baggage of this for- 
midable troop. 

They pushed on as fast as they could, through Tavistock, to reach 
before nightfall Lydford, where they meant to sleep; but what with 
buying the horses, and other delays, they had not been able to start 
before noon; and night fell just as they reached the frontiers of the 
enemy’s country. A dreary place enough it was, by the wild glare of 
sunset. A high table-land of heath, banked on the right by the crags 
and hills of Dartmoor, and sloping away to the south and west toward 
the foot of the great cone of Brent-Tor, which towered up like an ex- 
tinct volcano (as some say that it really is), crowned with the tiny 
church, the votive offering of some Plymouth merchant of old times, 
who vowed in sore distress to build a church to the Blessed Virgin on 
the first point of English land which he should see. Far away, down 
those waste slopes, they could see the tiny threads of blue smoke rising 
from the dens of the Gubbings; and more than once they called a halt, 
to examine whether distant furze-bushes and ponies might not be the 
patrols of an advancing army. It is all very well to laugh at it now, 
in the nineteenth century, but it was no laughing matter then ; as they 
found before they had gone two miles farther. 

1 Fuller, p. 398. 


■BHal 



Amyas rode out of Plymouth 


© G. W. J. & CO 


Q.CI.K14G147 
NOV 10 1920 v 


Salvation Yco 279 

On the middle of the down stood a wayside inn; a desolate and 
villainous-looking lump of lichen-spotted granite, with windows paper- 
patched, and rotting thatch kept down by stones and straw-bands; 
and at the back a rambling courtledge of barns and walls, around 
which pigs and barefoot children grunted in loving communion of dirt. 
At the door, rapt apparently in the contemplation of the mountain 
peaks which glowed rich orange in the last lingering sun-rays, but 
really watching which way the sheep on the moor were taking, stood 
the innkeeper, a brawny, sodden-visaged, blear-eyed six feet of bru- 
tishness, holding up his hose with one hand, for want of points, and 
clawing with the other his elf-locks, on which a fair sprinkling of 
feathers might denote: first that he was just out of bed, having been 
out sheep-stealing all the night before; and secondly, that by natural 
genius he had anticipated the opinion of that great apostle of sluttish- 
ness, Fridericus Dedekind, and his faithful disciple Dekker, which last 
speaks thus to all gulls and grobians “ Consider that as those trees 
of cobweb lawn, woven by spinners in the fresh May mornings, do 
dress the curled heads of the mountains, and adorn the swelling bosoms 
of the valleys ; or as those snowy fleeces, which the naked briar steals 
from the innocent sheep to make himself a warm winter livery, are, to 
either of them both, an excellent ornament; so make thou account, that 
to have feathers sticking here and there on thy head will embellish thee, 
and set thy crown out rarely. None dare upbraid thee, that like a 
beggar thou hast lain on straw, or like a traveling pedlar upon musty 
flocks ; for those feathers will rise up as witnesses to choke him that 
says so, and to prove thy bed to have been of the softest down.” Even 
so did those feathers bear witness that the possessor of Rogues’ Har- 
bor Inn, on Brent-Tor Down, whatever else he lacked, lacked not 
geese enough to keep him in soft lying. 

Presently he spies Amyas and his party coming slowly over the 
hill, pricks up his ears, and counts them; sees Amyas’s armor; shakes 
his head and grunts; and then, being a man of few words, utters a 
sleepy howl — 

“ Mirooi! — Fushing pooale! ” 

A strapping lass — whose only covering (for country women at 
work in those days dispensed with the ornament of a gown) is a green 
bodice and red petticoat, neither of them over ample — brings out his 
fishing-rod and basket, and the man, having tied up his hose with some 
ends of string, examines the footlink. 

“ Don vlies* gone ! ” 


280 


Westward Ho I 

“ May be/’ says Mary; “ shouldn’t hav’ left mun out to coort. May 
be old hen’s ate mun off. I see her chocking about a while agone.” 

The host receives this intelligence with an oath, and replies by a 
violent blow at Mary’s head, which she, accustomed to such slight 
matters, dodges, and then returns the blow with good effect on the 
shock head. 

Whereon mine host, equally accustomed to such slight matters, 
quietlv shambles off, howling as he departs — 

“Tell patrico!” 

Mary runs in, combs her hair, slips a pair of stockings and her best 
gown over her dirt, and awaits the coming guests, who make a few 
long faces at the “ mucksy sort of a place,” but prefer to spend the 
night there than to bivouac close to the enemy’s camp. 

So the old hen who has swallowed the dun fly is killed, plucked, and 
roasted, and certain “ black Dartmoor mutton ” is put on the gridiron, 
and being compelled to confess the truth by that fiery torment, pro- 
claims itself to all noses as red-deer venison. In the meanwhile 
Amyas has put his horse and the ponies into a shed, to which he can 
find neither lock nor key, and therefore returns grumbling, not with- 
out fear for his steed’s safety. The baggage is heaped in a corner of 
the room, and Amyas stretches his legs before a turf fire; while Yeo, 
who has his notions about the place, posts himself at the door, and the 
men are seized with a desire to superintend the cooking, probably to be 
attributed to the fact that Mary is cook. 

Presently Yeo comes in again. 

“ There’s a gentleman just coming up, sir, all alone.” 

“Ask him to make one of our party, then, with my compliments.” 
Yeo goes out, and returns in five minutes. 

“ Please, sir, he’s gone in back ways, by the court.” 

“ Well, he has an odd taste, if he makes himself at home here.” 

Out goes Yeo again, and comes back once more after five minutes, 
in high excitement. 

“ Come out, sir; for goodness’ sake come out. I’ve got him. Safe 
as a rat in a trap, I have ! ” 

“Who?” 

“A Jesuit, sir.” 

“ Nonsense, man! ” 

“ I tell you truth, sir. I went round the house, for I didn’t like the 
looks of him as he came up. I knew he was one of them villains the 
minute he came up, by the way he turned in his toes, and put down 


281 


Salvation "Ye© 

his feet so still and careful, like as if he was afraid of offending God 
at every step. So I just put my eye between the wall and the dern of 
the gate, and I saw him come up to the back door and knock, and call 
‘ Mary ! ’ quite still, like any Jesuit; and the Avench flies out to him 
ready to eat him; and ‘ Go away,’ I heard her say, ‘ there's a dear 
man ; 5 and then something about a ‘ queer cuffin ’ (that’s a justice in 
these canters’ thieves’ Latin) ; and with that he takes out a some- 
what — I’ll swear it was one of those Popish Agnuses — and gives it 
her; and she kisses it, and crosses herself, and asks him if that’s the 
right way, and then puts it into her bosom, and he says, ‘ Bless you, 
my daughter;’ and then I was sure of the dog: and he slips quite 
still to the stable, and peeps in, and when he sees no one there, in he 
goes, and out I go, and shut to the door, and back a cart that was 
there up against it, and call out one of the men to watch the stable, and 
the girl’s crying like mad.” 

“ What a fool’s trick, man! How do you know that he is not some 
honest gentleman after all? ” 

“ Fool or none, sir; honest gentlemen don’t give maidens Agnuses. 
I’ve put him in; and if you want him let out again, you must come 
and do it yourself, for my conscience is against it, sir. If the Lord’s 
enemies are delivered into my hand, I’m answerable, sir,” went on Yeo 
as Amyas hurried out with him. “ ’Tis written, ‘ If any let one of 
them go, his life shall be for the life of him.’ ” 

So Amyas ran out, pulled back the cart grumbling, opened the 
door, and began a string of apologies to — his cousin Eustace. 

Yes, here he was, with such a countenance, half foolish, half 
venomous, as Reynard wears when the last spadeful of earth is thrown 
back, and he is revealed sitting disconsolately on his tail within a yard 
of the terriers’ noses. 

Neither cousin spoke for a minute or two. At last Amyas, — 

“ Well, cousin hide-and-seek, how long have you added horse- 
stealing to your other trades? ” 

“ My dear Amyas,” said Eustace very meekly, “ I may surely go 
into an inn stable without intending to steal what is in it.” 

“ Of course, old fellow',” said Amyas, mollified, “ I was only in 
jest. But what brings you here? Not prudence, certainly.” 

“ I am bound to know no prudence save for the Lord’s work.” 

“ That’s giving away Agnus Deis, and deceiving poor heathen 
wenches, I suppose,” said Yeo. 

Eustace answered pretty roundly, — 


282 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Heathens? Yes, truly; you Protestants leave these poor wretches 
heathens, and then insult and persecute those who, with a devotion un- 
known to you, labor at the danger of their lives to make them Chris- 
tians. Mr. Amyas Leigh, you can give me up to be hanged at Exeter, 
if it shall so please you to disgrace your own family; but from this spot 
neither you, no, nor all the myrmidons of your Queen, shall drive me, 
while there is a soul here left unsaved.” 

“ Come out of the stable, at least,” said Amyas; “ you don’t want 
to make the horses Papists, as well as the asses, do you? Come out, 
man, and go to the devil your own way. I shan’t inform against you; 
and Yeo here will hold his tongue if I tell him, I know.” 

“ It goes sorely against my conscience, sir; but being that he is your 
cousin, of course ” 

“ Of course; and now come in and eat with me; supper’s just ready, 
and bygones shall be bygones, if you will have them so.” 

How much forgiveness Eustace felt in his heart, I know not: but he 
knew, of course, that he ought to forgive; and to go in and eat with 
Amyas was to perform an act of forgiveness, and for the best of mo- 
tives, too, for by it the cause of the Church might be furthered; and 
acts and motives being correct, what more was needed? So in he 
went; and yet he never forgot that scar upon his cheek; and Amyas 
could not look him in the face, but Eustace must fancy that his eyes 
were on the scar, and peep up from under his lids, to see if there was 
any smile of triumph on that honest visage. They talked away over 
the venison, guardedly enough at first ; but as they went on, Amyas’s 
straightforward kindliness warmed poor Eustace’s frozen heart; and 
ere they were aware, they found themselves talking over old haunts 
and old passages of their boyhood — uncles, aunts, and cousins ; 
and Eustace, without any sinister intention, asked Amyas why 
he was going to Bideford, while Frank and his mother were in 
London. 

“ To tell you the truth, I cannot rest till I have heard the whole 
story about poor Rose Salterne.” 

“ What about her? ” cried Eustace. 

“ Do you not know? ” 

“ How should I know anything here? For heaven’s sake, what has 
happened? ” 

Amyas told him, wondering at his eagerness, for he had never had 
the least suspicion of Eustace’s love. 

Eustace shrieked aloud. 


283 


Salvation "Veo 

“ Fool, fool that I have been! Caught in my own trap! Villain, 
villain that he is ! After all he promised me at Lundy ! ” 

And springing up, Eustace stamped up and down the room, gnash- 
ing his teeth, tossing his head from side to side, and clutching with out- 
stretched hands at the empty air, with the horrible gesture (heaven 
grant that no reader has ever witnessed it!) of that despair which still 
seeks blindly for the object which it knows is lost for ever. 

Amyas sat thunderstruck. His first impulse was to ask, “ Lundy? 
What knew you of him? What had he or you to do at Lundy? ” but 
pity conquered curiosity. 

“ Oh, Eustace! And you then loved her too? ” 

“ Don’t speak to me! Loved her? Yes, sir, and had as good a 
right to love her as any one of your precious brotherhood of the Rose. 
Don’t speak to me, I say, or I shall do you a mischief! ” 

So Eustace knew of the brotherhood too! Amyas longed to ask 
him how; but what use in that? If he knew it, he knew it; and what 
harm? So he only answered, — 

“ My good cousin, why be wroth with me? If you really love her, 

now is the time to take counsel with me how best we shall ” 

Eustace did not let him finish his sentence. Conscious that he had 
betrayed himself upon more points than one, he stopped short in his 
walk, suddenly collected himself by one great effort, and eyed Amyas 
from underneath his brows with the old down look. 

“ How best we shall do what, my valiant cousin? ” said he, in a 
meaning and half scornful voice. “ What does your most chivalrous 
brotherhood of the Rose purpose in such a case? ” 

Amyas, a little nettled, stood on his guard in return, and answered 
bluntly, — 

“ What the brotherhood of the Rose will do, I can’t yet say. What 
it ought to do, I have a pretty sure guess.” 

44 So have I. To hunt her down as you would an outlaw, because 
forsooth she has dared to love a Catholic; to murder her lover in her 
arms, and drag her home again stained with his blood, to be forced, 
by threats and persecution, to renounce that church into whose ma- 
ternal bosom she has doubtless long since found rest and holiness! ” 

“ If she has found holiness, it matters little to me where she has 
found it, Master Eustace: but that is the very point that I should be 
glad to know for certain.” 

“And you will go and discover for yourself? ” 

“ Have you no wish to discover it also? ” 


284 


Westward Ho ! 

“And if I had, what would that be to you? ” 

“ Only,” said Amyas, trying hard to keep his temper, “ that, if we 
had the same purpose, we might sail in the same ship.” 

“ You intend to sail, then? ” 

“ I mean simply, that we might work together.” 

“ Our paths lie on very different roads, sir! ” 

“ I am afraid you never spoke a truer word, sir. In the mean- 
while, ere we part, be so kind as to tell me what you meant by saying 
that you had met this Spaniard at Lundy? ” 

“ I shall refuse to answer that.” 

“ You will please to recollect, Eustace, that however good friends 
we have been for the last half hour, you are in my power. I have a 
right to know the bottom of this matter; and, by heaven, I will 
know it.” 

“ In your power? see that you are not in mine ! Remember, sir, that 
you are within a — within a few miles, at least, of those who will obey 
me, their Catholic benefactor: but who owe no allegiance to those 
Protestant authorities who have left them to the lot of the beasts which 
perish.” 

Amyas was very angry. He wanted but little more to make him 
catch Eustace by the shoulders, shake the life out of him, and deliver 
him into the tender guardianship of Yeo: but he knew that to take 
him at all was to bring certain death on him, and disgrace on the 
family; and remembering Frank’s conduct on that memorable night 
at Clovelly, he kept himself down. 

“ Take me,” said Eustace, “ if you will, sir. You, who complain 
of us that we keep no faith with heretics, will perhaps recollect that 
you asked me into this room as your guest: and that in your good faith 
I trusted when I entered it.” 

The argument was a worthless one in law; for Eustace had been a 
prisoner before he was a guest, and Amyas was guilty of something 
very like misprision of treason in not handing him over to the nearest 
justice. However, all he did was, to go to the door, open it, and bow- 
ing to his cousin, bid him walk out and go to the devil, since he seemed 
to have set his mind on ending his days in the company of that per- 
sonage. 

Whereon Eustace vanished. 

“ Pooh! ” said Amyas to himself: “ I can find out enough, and too 
much, I fear, without the help of such crooked vermin. I must see 
Cary; I must see Salterne; and I suppose, if I am ready to do my 


Salvation "Yk& 28 5 

duty, I shall learn somehow what it is. Now to sleep; to-morrow up 
and away to what God sends.” 

“ Come in hither, men,” shouted he down the passage, “ and sleep 
here. Haven’t you had enough of this villainous sour cider? ” 

The men came in yawning, and settled themselves to sleep on the 
floor. 

“ Where’s Yeo? ” 

No one knew; he had gone out to say his prayers, and had not re- 
turned. 

“ Never mind,” said Amyas, who suspected some plot on the old 
man’s part. “ He’ll take care of himself, I’ll warrant him.” 

“No fear of that, sir; ” and the four tars were soon snoring in con- 
cert round the fire, while Amyas laid himself on the settle, with his 
saddle for a pillow. 

* * * * * * * 

It was about midnight, when Amyas leaped to his feet, or rather 
fell upon his back, upsetting saddle, settle, and finally, table, under 
the notion that ten thousand flying dragons were bursting in the win- 
dow close to his ear, with howls most fierce and fell. The flying 
dragons passed, however, being only a flock of terror-stricken geese, 
which flew flapping and screaming round the corner of the house : but 
the noise which had startled them did not pass; and another minute 
made it evident that a sharp fight was going on in the courtyard, and 
that Yeo was hallooing lustily for help. 

Out turned the men, sword in hand, burst the back door open, 
stumbling over pails and pitchers, and into the courtyard, where Yeo, 
his back against the stable-door, was holding his own manfully with 
sword and buckler against a dozen men. 

Dire and manifold was the screaming; geese screamed, chickens 
screamed, pigs screamed, donkeys screamed, Mary screamed from an 
upper window; and to complete the chorus, a flock of plovers, at- 
tracted by the noise, wheeled round and round over head, and added 
their screams also to that Dutch concert. 

The screaming went on, but the fight ceased; for, as Amyas rushed 
into the yard, the whole party of ruffians took to their heels, and van- 
ished over a low hedge at the other end of the yard. 

“Are you hurt, Yeo? ” 

“Not a scratch, thank Heaven! But I’ve got two of them, the 
ringleaders, I have. One of them’s against the wall. Your horse 
did for t’other.” 


*286 


Westwara Ho ! 

The wounded man was lifted up; a huge ruffian, nearly as big as 
Amy as himself. Yeo’s sword had passed through his body. He 
groaned and choked for breath. 

“ Carry him indoors. Where is the other? ” 

“ Dead as a herring, in the straw. Have a care, men, have a care 
how you go in ! the horses are near mad ! ” 

However, the man was brought out after a while. With him all 
was over. They could feel neither pulse nor breath. 

“ Carry him in too, poor wretch. And now, Yeo, what is the mean- 
ing of all this? ” 

Yeo’s story was soon told. He could not get out of his Puritan 
head the notion (quite unfounded, of course) that Eustace had meant 
to steal the horses. He had seen the innkeeper sneak off at their ap- 
proach; and expecting some night-attack, he had taken up his lodging 
for the night in the stable. 

As he expected, an attempt was made. The door was opened (how, 
he could not guess, for he had fastened it inside) , and two fellows came 
in, and began to loose the beasts. Yeo’s account was that he seized 
the big fellow,, who drew a knife on him, and broke loose; the horses, 
terrified at the scuffle, kicked right and left; one man fell, and the 
other ran out, calling for help, with Yeo at his heels; “ Whereon,” said 
Yeo, “ seeing a dozen more on me with clubs and bows, I thought 
best to shorten the number while I could, ran the rascal through, and 
stood on my ward; and only just in time I was, what’s more; there’s 
two arrows in the house wall, and two or three more in my buckler, 
which I caught up as I went out, for I had hung it close by the door, 
you see, sir, to be all ready in case:” said the cunning old Philistine- 
slayer, as they went in after the wounded man. 

But hardly had they stumbled through the low doorway into the 
back kitchen when a fresh hubbub arose inside — more shouts for help. 
Amy as ran forward, breaking his head against the doorway, and be- 
held, as soon as he could see for the flashes in his eyes, an old acquaint- 
ance, held on each side by a sturdy sailor. 

With one arm in the sleeve of his doublet, and the other in a not 
over spotless shirt; holding up his hose with one hand, and with the 
other a candle, whereby he had lighted himelf to his own confusion; 
foaming with rage, stood Mr. Evan Morgans, alias Father Parsons, 
looking, between his confused habiliments and his fiery visage (as Yeo 
told him to his face) , “ the very moral of a half-plucked turkey-cock.” 
And behind him, dressed, stood Eustace Leigh. 


3 alvaHon 'Vco 287 

4 We found the maid letting these here two out by the front door,” 
said one of the captors. 

“ Well, Mr. Parsons,” said Amyas; “ and what are you about here? 
A pretty nest of thieves and J esuits we seem to have routed out this 
evening.” 

“About my calling, sir,” said Parsons, stoutly. “ By your leave, 
I shall prepare this my wounded lamb for that account to which your 
man’s cruelty has untimely sent him.” 

The wounded man, who lay upon the floor, heard Parsons’ voice, 
and moaned for the “ Patrico.” 

“ You see, sir,” said he pompously, “ the sheep know their shepherd’s 
voice.” 

“ The wolves you mean, you hypocritical scoundrel! ” said Amyas, 
who could not contain his disgust. “ Let the fellow truss up his 
points, lads, and do his work. After all, the man is dying.” 

“ The requisite matters, sir, are not at hand,” said Parsons, un- 
abashed. 

“ Eustace, go and fetch his matters for him; you seem to be in all 
his plots.” 

Eustace went silently and sullenly. 

“ What’s that fresh noise at the back, now? ” 

“ The maid, sir, a wailing over her uncle; the fellow that we saw 
sneak away when we came up. It was him the horse killed.” 

It was true. The wretched host had slipped off on their approach, 
simply to call the neighboring outlaws to the spoil; and he had been 
filled with the fruit of his own devices. 

“ His blood be on his own head,” said Amyas. 

“ I question, sir,” said Yeo, in a low voice, “ whether some of it will 
not be on the heads of those proud jwelates who go clothed in purple 
and fine linen, instead of going forth to convert such as he, and then 
wonder how these Jesuits get hold of them. If they give place to the 
devil in their sheepfolds, sure he’ll come in and lodge here. Look, sir, 
there’s a sight in a gospel land! ” 

And, indeed, the sight was curious enough. For Parsons was 
kneeling by the side of the dying man, listening earnestly to the con- 
fession which the man sobbed out in his gibberish, between the spasms 
of his wounded chest. Now and then Parsons shook his head; and 
when Eustace returned with the holy wafer, and the oil for extreme 
unction, he asked him, in a low voice, “ Ballard, interpret for me.” 

And Eustace knelt down on the other side of the sufferer, and in- 


288 


Westward Ho ! 

terpreted his thieves’ dialect into Latin; and the dying man held a 
hand of each, and turned first to one and then to the other stupid eyes, 
* — not without affection, though, and gratitude. 

“ I can’t stand this mummery any longer,” said Yeo. “ Here’s a 
soul perishing before my eyes, and it’s on my conscience to speak a 
word in season.” 

“ Silence! ” whispered Amyas, holding him back by the arm; “ he 
knows them, and he don’t know you; they are the first who ever spoke 
to him as if he had a soul to be saved, and first come, first served ; } r ou 
can do no good. See, the man’s face is brightening already.” 

“ But, sir, ’tis a false peace.” 

“At all events he is confessing his sins, Yeo; and if that’s not good 
for him, and you, and me, what is? ” 

“ Yea, Amen! sir; but this is not to the right person.” 

“ How do you know his words will not go to the right person after 
all, though he may not send them there? By heaven! the man is 
dead ! ” 

It was so. The dark catalogue of brutal deeds had been gasped 
out; but ere the words of absolution could follow, the head had fallen 
back, and all was over. 

“ Confession in extremis is sufficient,” said Parsons to Eustace 
(“ Ballard,” as Parsons called him, to Amyas’s surprise), as he rose. 
“As for the rest, the intention will be accepted instead of the act.” 

“ The Lord have mercy on his soul! ” said Eustace. 

“ His soul is lost before our very eyes,” said Yeo. 

“ Mind your own business,” said Amyas. 

“ Humph ; but I’ll tell you, sir, what our business is, if you’ll step 
aside with me. I find that poor fellow that lies dead is none other 
than the leader of the Gubbings; the king of them, as they dare to 
call him.” 

“ Well, what of that? ” 

“ Mark my words, sir, if we have not a hundred stout rogues upon 
us before two hours are out; forgive us they never will; and if we get 
off with our lives, which I don’t much expect, we shall leave our horses 
behind; for we can hold the house, sir, well enough till morning: but 
the courtyard we can’t, that’s certain! ” 

“ We had better march at once, then.” 

“ Think, sir; if they catch us up — as they are sure to do, knowing 
the country better than we — how will our shot stand their arrows? ” 

“ True, old wisdom; we must keep the road; and we must keep to- 


Salvation "Yeo 289 

gether; and so be a mark for them, while they will be behind every 
rock and bank ; and two or three flights of arrows will do our business 
for us. Humph! stay, I have a plan.” And stepping forward he 
spoke — 

“ Eustace, you will be so kind as to go back to your lambs; and tell 
them that if they meddle with us cruel wolves again to-night, we are 
ready and willing to fight to the death, and have plenty of shot and 
powder at their service. Father Parsons, you will be so kind as to 
accompany us; it is but fitting that the shepherd should be hostage for 
his sheep.” 

“ If you carry me off this spot, sir, you carry my corpse only,” said 
Parsons. “ I may as well die here as be hanged elsewhere, like my 
martyred brother Campian.” 

“ If you take him, you must take me too,” said Eustace. 

“ What if we won’t? ” 

“ How will you gain by that? you can only leave me here. You 
cannot make me go to the Gubbings, if I do not choose.” 

Aanyas uttered, sotto voce, an anathema on Jesuits, Gubbings, and 
things in general. He was in a great hurry to get to Bideford, and he 
feared that this business would delay him, as it was, a day or two. He 
wanted to hang Parsons: he did not want to hang Eustace; and Eus- 
tace, he knew, was well aware of that latter fact, and played his game 
accordingly: but time ran on, and he had to answer sulkily enough — 

“ Well then; if you, Eustace, will go and give my message to your 
converts, I will promise to set Mr. Parsons free again before we come 
to Lydford town; and I advise you, if you have any regard for his life, 
to see that your eloquence be persuasive enough; for as sure as I am 
an Englishman, and he none, if the Gubbings attack us, the first bullet 
that I shall fire at them will have gone through his scoundrelly 
brains.” 

Parsons still kicked. 

“ Very well, then, my merry men all. Tie this gentleman’s hands 
behind his back, get the horses out, and we’ll right away up into Dart- 
moor, find a good high tor, stand our ground there till morning, and 
then carry him into Okehampton to the nearest justice. If he chooses 
to delay me in my journey, it is fair that I should make him pay 
for it.” 

Whereon Parsons gave in, and being fast tied by his arm to Amyas’s 
saddle, trudged alongside his horse for several weary miles, while Yeo 
walked by his side, like a friar by a condemned criminal; and in order 


290 


Westward Ho ! 

to keep up his spirits, told him the woful end of Nicholas Saunders the 
Legate, and how he was found starved to death in a bog. 

“And if you wish, sir, to follow in his blessed steps, which I heartily 
hope you will do, you have only to go over that big cow-backed hill 
there on your right hand, and down again the other side to Crawmere 
pool, and there you’ll find as pretty a bog to die in as ever Jesuit 
needed: and your ghost may sit there on a grass tummock, and tell 
your beads without any one asking for you till the day of judgment; 
and much good may it do you! ” 

At which imagination Yeo was actually heard, for the first and last 
time in this history, to laugh most heartily. 

His ho-ho’s had scarcely died away, when they saw shining under 
the moon the old tower of Lydford Castle. 

“ Cast the fellow off now,” said Amyas. 

“Ay, ay, sir! ” and Yeo and Simon Evans stopped behind, and did 
not come up for ten minutes after. 

“ What have you been about so long? ” 

“ Why, sir,” said Evans, “ you see the man had a very fair pair of 
hose on, and a bran-new kersey doublet, very warm-lined; and so, 
thinking it a pity good clothes should be wasted on such noxious trade, 
we’ve just brought them along with us.” 

“ Spoiling the Egyptians,” said Yeo as comment. 

“ And what have you done with the man? ” 

“ Hove him over the bank, sir; he pitched into a big furze-bush, and 
for aught I know, there he’ll bide.” 

“ You rascal, have you killed him? ” 

“ Never fear, sir,” said Yeo, in his cool fashion. “A Jesuit has as 
many lives as a cat, and, I believe, rides broomsticks post, like a witch. 
He would be at Lydford now before us, if his master Satan had any 
business for him there.” 

Leaving on their left Lydford and its ill-omened castle (which, a 
century after, was one of the principal scenes of Judge Jeffreys’s 
cruelty), Amyas and his party trudged on through the mire toward 
Okehampton till sunrise; and ere the vapors had lifted from the 
mountain tops, they were descending the long slopes from Sourton 
down, while Yestor and Amicombe slept steep and black beneath their 
misty pall; and roaring far below unseen. 

“Ockment leapt from crag and cloud 
Down her cataracts, laughing loud. ’ 9 

The voice of the stream recalled these words to Amyas’s mind. The 


291 


Salvation 'Veo 

nymph of Torridge had spoken them upon the day of his triumph. 
He recollected, too, his vexation on that day at not seeing Rose Sal- 
terne. Why, he had never seen her since. Never seen her now for 
six years and more! Of her ripened beauty he knew only by hearsay; 
she was still to him the lovely fifteen years’ girl, for whose sake he had 
smitten the Barnstaple draper over the quay. What a chain of petty 
accidents had kept them from meeting, though so often within a mile 
of each other! “And what a lucky one!” said practical old Amyas 
to himself. “ If I had seen her as she is now, I might have loved her 
as Frank does — poor Frank! what will he say? What does he say, 
for he must know it already? And what ought I to say — to do 
rather, for talking is no use on this side the grave, nor on the other 
either, I expect? ” And then he asked himself, whether his old oath 
meant nothing or something; whether it was a mere tavern frolic, or a 
sacred duty. And he held, the more he looked at it, that it meant the 
latter. 

But what could he do? He had nothing on earth but his sword, so 
he could not travel to find her. After all, she might not be gone far. 
Perhaps not gone at all. It might be a mistake, an exaggerated 
scandal. He would hope so. And yet it was evident that there had 
been some passages between her and Don Guzman. Eustace’s mys- 
terious words about the promise at Lundy proved that. The villain! 
He had felt all along that he was a villain: but just the one to win a 
woman’s heart, too. Frank had been away — all the brotherhood 
away. What a fool he had been, to turn the wolf loose into the sheep- 
fold ! And yet who would have dreamed of it? . . . 

“At all events,” said Amyas, trying to comfort himself, “ I need 
not complain. I have lost nothing. I stood no more chance of her 
against Frank than I should have stood against the Don. So there is 
no use for me to cry about the matter.” And he tried to hum a tune 
concerning the general frailty of women, but nevertheless, like Sir 
Hugh, felt that “ he had a great disposition to cry.” 

He never had expected to win her, and yet it seemed bitter to know 
that she was lost to him forever. It was not so easy for a heart of his 
make to toss away the image of a first love; and all the less easy, 
because that image was stained and ruined. 

“ Curses on the man who had done that deed! I will yet have his 
heart’s blood somehow, if I go round the world again to find him. If 
there’s no law for it on earth, there’s law in heaven, or I’m much 
mistaken.” 


292 


Westward Ho ! 

With which determination he rode into the ugly, dirty, and stupid 
town of Okehampton, with which fallen man (by some strange per- 
versity) has chosen to defile one of the loveliest sites in the pleasant 
land of Devon. And heartily did Amyas abuse the old town that day ; 
for he was detained there, as he expected, full three hours, while the 
Justice Shallow of the place was sent for from his farm (whither he had 
gone at sunrise, after the early-rising fashion of those days) to take 
Yeo’s deposition concerning last night’s affray. Moreover, when 
Shallow came, he refused to take the depositions, because they ought 
to have been made before a brother Shallow at Lydford; and in the 
wrangling which ensued, was very near finding out what Amyas ( fear- 
ing fresh loss of time and worse evils beside) had commanded to be 
concealed, namely, the presence of Jesuits in that Moorland Utopia. 
Then, in broadest Devon, — 

“And do you call this Christian conduct, sir, to set a quiet man like 
me upon they Gubbings, as if I was going to risk my precious life — no, 
nor ever a constable to Okehampton neither? Let Lydfor’ men mind 
Lydfor’ roogs,and by Lydfor’ law if they will, hang first and try after; 
but as for me, I’ve rade my Bible, and ‘ He that meddleth with strife 
is like him that taketh a dog by the ears.’ So if you choose to sit down 
and ate your breakfast with me, well and good: but depositions I’ll 
have none. If your man is inquired for, you’ll be answerable for his 
appearing, in course; but I expect mortally ” (with a wink), “you 
waint hear much more of the matter from any hand. ‘ Leave well 
alone is a good rule, but leave ill alone is a better.’ — So we says 
round about here; and so you’ll say, captain, when you be so old 
as I.” 

So Amyas sat down and ate his breakfast, and went on afterward a 
long and weary day’s journey, till he saw at last beneath him the broad 
shining river, and the long bridge and the white houses piled up the 
hillside; and beyond, over Raleigh downs, the dear old tower of 
Northam Church. 

Alas, Northam was altogether a desert to him then; and Bideford, 
as it turned out, hardly less so. For when he rode up to Sir Richard’s 
door, he found that the good Knight was still in Ireland, and Lady 
Grenvile at Stow. Whereupon he rode back again down the High 
Street to that same bow-windowed Ship Tavern where the brotherhood 
of the Rose made their vow, and settled himself in the very room where 
they had supped. 

“Ah! Mr. Leigh — Captain Leigh now, I beg pardon,” quoth mine 


293 


salvation "Yeo 

host. “ Bideford is an empty place nowadays, and nothing stirring, 
sir. What with Sir Richard to Ireland, and Sir John to London, and 
all the young gentlemen to the wars, there’s no one to buy good liquor, 
and no one to court the young ladies, neither. Sack, sir? I hope so. 
I haven’t brewed a gallon of it this fortnight, if you’ll believe me; ale, 
sir, and aqua vitas, and such low-bred trade, is all I draw nowadays. 
Try a pint of sherry, sir, now, to give you an appetite. You mind my 
sherry of old? Jane! Sherry and sugar, quick, while I pull off the 
Captain’s boots.” 

Amy as sat weary and sad, while the innkeeper chattered on. 

“Ah, sir! two or three like you would set the young ladies all alive 
again. By-the-by, there’s been strange doings among them since you 
were here last. You mind Mistress Salterne? ” 

“ For God’s sake, don’t let us have that story, man! I heard enough 
of it at Plymouth! ” said Amyas, in so disturbed a tone that mine host 
looked up, and said to himself — 

“Ah, poor young gentleman, he’s one of the hard-hit ones.” 

“ How is the old man? ” asked Amyas, after a pause. 

“ Bears it well enough, sir; but a changed man. Never speaks to a 
soul, if he can help it. Some folk say he’s not right in his head; or 
turned miser, or somewhat, and takes nought but bread and water, 
and sits up all night in the room as was hers, turning over her garments. 
Heaven knows what’s on his mind — they do say he was over hard on 
her, and that drove her to it. All I know is, he has never been in here 
for a drop of liquor (and he came as regular every evening as the town 
clock, sir) since she went, except a ten days ago, and then he met 
young Mr. Cary at the door, and I heard him ask Mr. Cary when you 
would be home, sir.” 

“ Put on my boots again. I’ll go and see him.” 

“ Bless you, sir! What, without your sack? ” 

“ Drink it yourself, man.” 

“ But you wouldn’t go out again this time o’ night on an empty 
stomach, now? ” 

“ Fill my men’s stomachs for them, and never mind mine. It’s 
market-day, is it not? Send out, and see whether Mr. Cary is still in 
town;” and Amyas strode out, and along the quay to Bridgeland 
Street, and knocked at Mr. Salterne’s door. 

Salterne himself opened it, with his usual stern courtesy. 

“ I saw you coming up the street, sir. I have been expecting this 
honor from you for some time past. I dreamed of you only last night, 


294 


Westward Ho I 

and many a night before that too. Welcome, sir, into a lonely house. 
I trust the good knight your general is well.” 

“ The good knight my general is with God who made him, Mr. 
Salterne.” 

“ Dead, sir? ” 

“ Foundered at sea on our way home; and the Delight lost too.” 

“ Humph! ” growled Salterne, after a minute’s silence. “ I had a 
venture in her. I suppose it’s gone. No matter — I can afford it, sir, 
and more, I trust. And he was three years younger than I! And 
Draper Heard was buried yesterday, five years younger. — How is it 
that every one can die, except me? Come in, sir, come in; I have for- 
gotten my manners.” 

And he led Amyas into his parlor, and called to the apprentices to 
run one way, and to the cook to run another. 

“ You must not trouble yourself to get me supper, indeed.” 

“ I must though, sir, and the best of wine too; and old Salterne had 
a good tap of Alicant in old time, old time, old time, sir ! and you must 
drink it now, whether he does or not ! ” and out he bustled. 

Amyas sat still, wondering what was coming next, and puzzled at 
the sudden hilarity of the man, as well as his hospitality, so different 
from what the innkeeper had led him to expect. 

In a minute more one of the apprentices came in to lay the cloth, and 
Amyas questioned him about his master. 

“ Thank the Lord that you are come, sir,” said the lad. 

“ Why, then! ” 

“ Because there’ll be a chance of us poor fellows getting a little 
broken meat. We’m half-starved this three months — bread and drip- 
ping, bread and dripping, oh dear, sir ! And now he’s sent out to the 
inn for chickens, and game, and salads, and all that money can buy, 
and down in the cellar haling out the best of wine.” — And the lad 
smacked his lips audibly at the thought. 

“ Is he out of his mind? ” 

“ I can’t tell; he saith as how he must save mun’s money nowadays; 
for he’ve a got a great venture on hand: but what a be he telFth no 
man. They call’th mun ‘ bread and dripping ’ now, sir, all town 
over,” said the prentice, confidentially, to Amyas. 

“ They do, do they, sirrah? Then they will call me bread and no 
dripping to-morrow! ” and old Salterne, entering from behind, made 
a dash at the poor fellow’s ears: but luckily thought better of it, having 
a couple of bottles in each hand. 


Salvation "Yko 295 

“ My dear sir,” said Amyas, “ you don’t mean us to drink all that 
wine? ” 

“ Why not, sir? ” answered Salterne, in a grim, half-sneering tone, 
thrusting out his square-grizzled beard and chin. “ Why not, sir? 
why should I not make merry when I have the honor of a noble captain 
in my house? one who has sailed the seas, sir, and cut Spaniards’ 
throats; and may cut them again too; eh, sir? Boy, where’s the kettle 
and the sugar? ” 

“ What on earth is the man at? ” quoth Amyas to himself — “ flatter- 
ing me, or laughing at me? ” 

“ Yes,” he ran on, half to himself, in a deliberate tone, evidently 
intending to hint more than he said, as he began brewing the sack — in 
plain English, hot negus; “Yes, bread and dripping for those who 
can’t fight Spaniards; but the best that money can buy for those who 

can. I heard of you at Smerwick, sir Yes, bread and dripping 

for me too — I can’t fight Spaniards: but for such as you. Look here, 
sir; I should like to feed a crew of such up, as you’d feed a main of 
fighting-cocks, and then start them with a pair of Sheffield spurs 
apiece — you’ve a good one there to your side, sir: but don’t you think 
a man might carry two now, and fight as they say those Chineses do, a 
sword to each hand? You could kill more that way, Captain Leigh, 
I reckon? ” 

Amyas half laughed. 

“ One will do, Mr. Salterne, if one is quick enough with it.” 

“ Humph? — Ah — No use being in a hurry. I haven’t been in a 
hurry. No — I waited for you; and here you are and welcome, sir! 
Here comes supper: a light matter, sir, you see. A capon and a brace 
of partridges. I had no time to feast you as you deserve.” 

And so he ran on all supper-time, hardly allowing Amyas to get a 
word in edgeways: but heaping him with coarse flattery, and urging 
him to drink, till after the cloth was drawn, and the two left alone, he 
grew so outrageous that Amyas was forced to take him to task good- 
humoredly. 

“ Now, my dear sir, you have feasted me royally, and better far than 
I deserve: but why will you go about to make me drunk twice over, 
first with vainglory, and then with wine? ” 

Salterne looked at him a while fixedly, and then, sticking out his 
chin — “ Because, Captain Leigh, I am a man who has all his life tried 
the crooked road first, and found the straight one the safer after 
all.” 


296 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Eh, sir? That is a strange speech for one who bears the character 
of the most upright man in Bideford.” 

“ Humph. So I thought myself once, sir; and well I have proved 
it. But I’ll be plain with you, sir. You’ve heard how — how I’ve 
fared since you saw me last? ” 

Amyas nodded his head. 

“ I thought so. Shame rides post. Now then, Captain Leigh, lis- 
ten to me. I, being a plain man and a burgher, and one that never 
drew iron in my life except to mend a pen, ask you, being a gentleman 
and a captain and a man of honor, with a weapon to your side, and 
harness to your back — what would you do in my place? ” 

“Humph!” said Amyas, “that would very much depend on 
whether 4 my place ’ was my own fault or not.” 

“And what if it were, sir? What if all that the charitable folks of 
Bideford — (Heaven reward them for their tender mercies!) — have 
been telling you in the last hour be true, sir, — true! and yet not half 
the truth? ” 

Amyas gave a start. 

“Ah, you shrink from me! Of course a man is too righteous to for- 
give those who repent, though God is not.” 

“ God knows, sir ” 

“ Yes, sir, God does know — all ; and you shall know a little — as much 
as I can tell — or you understand. Come up-stairs with me, sir, as 
you’ll drink no more; I have a liking for you. I have watched you 
from your boyhood, and I can trust you, and I’ll show you what I 
never showed to mortal man but one.” 

And, taking up a candle, he led the way up-stairs, while Amyas 
followed wondering. 

He stopped at a door, and unlocked it. 

“ There, come in. Those shutters have not been opened since 
she ” and the old man was silent. 

Amyas looked round the room. It was a low wainscoted room, such 
as one sees in old houses : everything was in the most perfect neatness. 
The snow-white sheets on the bed were turned down as if ready for an 
occupant. There were books arranged on the shelves, fresh flowers 
on the table; the dressing-table had all its woman’s mundus of pins, 
and rings, and brushes; even the dressing-gown lay over the chair- 
back. Everything was evidently just as it had been left. 

“ This was her room, sir,” whispered the old man. 

Amyas nodded silently, and half drew back. 


Salvation Tfeo 297 

“You need not be modest about entering it now, sir,” whispered he, 
with a sort of sneer. “ There has been no frail flesh and blood in it for 
many a day.” 

Amyas sighed. 

“ I sweep it out myself every morning, and keep all tidy. See 
here! ” and he pulled open a drawer. “ Here are all her gowns, and 
there are her hoods ; and there — I know ’em all by heart now, and the 
place of every one. And there, sir ” 

And he opened a cupboard, where lay in rows all Rose’s dolls, and 
the worn-out playthings of her childhood. 

“ That’s the pleasantest place of all in the room to me,” said he, 
whispering still: “ for it minds me of when — and maybe, she may be- 
come a little child once more, sir; it’s written in the Scripture, you 
know ” 

“Amen! ” said Amyas, who felt, to his own wonder, a big tear steal- 
ing down each cheek. 

“And now,” he whispered, “one thing more. Look here!” — and 
pulling out a key, he unlocked a chest, and lifted up tray after tray of 
necklaces and jewels, furs, lawns, cloth of gold. “ Look there! Two 
thousand pound won’t buy that chest. Twenty years have I been get- 
ting those things together. That’s the cream of many a Levant voy- 
age, and East Indian voyage, and West Indian voyage. My Lady 
Bath can’t match those pearls in her grand house at Tawstock; I got 
’em from a Genoese, though, and paid for ’em. Look at that embroid- 
ered lawn! There’s not such a piece in London; no, nor in Alexan- 
dria, I’ll warrant; nor short of Calcut, where it came from. . . . 

Look here again, there’s a golden cup ! I bought that of one that was 
out with Pizarro in Peru. And look here, again! ” — and the old man 
gloated over the treasure. 

“And whom do you think I kept all these for? These were for her 
wedding-day — for her wedding-day. For your wedding-day, if you’d 
been minded, sir ! Yes, yours, sir ! And yet, I believe, I was so ambi- 
tious that I would not have let her marry under an earl, all the while I 
was pretending to be too proud to throw her at the head of a squire’s 
son. Ah well! There was my idol, sir. I made her mad, I pam- 
pered her up with gewgaws and vanity; and then, because my idol was 
just what I had made her, I turned again and rent her. 

“And now,” said he, pointing to the open chest, “ that was what I 
meant; and that” (pointing to the empty bed), “was what God 
meant. Never mind. Come down-stairs and finish your wine. I see 


298 


Westward Ho ! 

you don't care about it all. Why should you! you are not her father, 
and you may thank God you are not. Go, and be merry while you 
can, young sir! . . . And yet, all this might have been yours. 

And — but I don’t suppose you are one to be won by money — but all 
this may be yours still, and twenty thousand pounds to boot.” 

“ I want no money, sir, but what I can earn with my own sword.” 

“ Earn my money, then! ” 

“ What on earth do you want of me? ” 

“ To keep your oath,” said Salterne, clutching his arm, and looking 
up into his face with searching eyes. 

“ My oath! How did you know that I had one? ” 

“ Ah ! you were well ashamed of it, I suppose, next day ! A drunken 
frolic all about a poor merchant’s daughter ! But there is nothing hid- 
den that shall not be revealed, nor done in the closet, that is not pro- 
claimed on the housetops.” 

“Ashamed of it, sir, I never was: but I have a right to ask how you 
came to know it? ” 

“ What if a poor fat squinny rogue, a low-born fellow even as I am, 
whom you had baffled and made a laughing-stock, had come to me in 
my loneliness and sworn before God that if you honorable gentlemen 
would not keep your words, he the clown would? ” 

“ John Brimblecombe? ” 

“ And what if I had brought him where I have brought you, and 
shown him what I have shown you, and, instead of standing as stiff as 
any Spaniard, as you do, he had thrown himself on his knees by that 
bedside, and wept and prayed, sir, till he opened my hard heart for the 
first and last time, and I fell down on my sinful knees and wept and 
prayed by him? ” 

“ I am not given to weeping, Mr. Salterne,” said Amyas; “ and as 
for praying, I don’t know yet what I have to pray for, on her account: 
my business is to work. Show me what I can do; and when you have 
done that, it will be full time to upbraid me with not doing it.” 

“ You can cut that fellow’s throat.” 

“ It will take a long arm to reach him.” 

“ I suppose it is as easy to sail to the Spanish Main as it was to sail 
round the world.” 

“ My good sir,” said Amyas, “ I have at this moment no more 
worldly goods than my clothes and my sword; so how to sail to the 
Spanish Main, I don’t quite see.” 

“And do you suppose, sir, that I should hint to you of such a 


Salvation Yeo 299 

voyage, if I meant you to be at the charge of it? No, sir, if you want 
two thousand pounds, or five, to fit a ship, take it! Take it, sir! I 
hoarded money for my child: and now I will spend it to avenge her.” 

Amyas was silent for a while; the old man still held his arm, still 
looked up steadfastly and fiercely in his face. 

“ Bring me home that man’s head, and take ship, prizes — all ! Keep 
the gain, sir, and give me the revenge ! ” 

“ Gain? Do you think I need bribing, sir? What kept me silent 
was the thought of my mother: I dare not go without her leave.” 

Salterne made a gesture of impatience. 

“ I dare not, sir; I must obey my parent, whatever else I do.” 

“ Humph! ” said he. “ If others had obeyed theirs as well! — But 
you are right, Captain Leigh, right. You will prosper, whoever else 
does not. Now, sir, good-night, if you will let me be the first to say 
so. My old eyes grow heavy early nowadays. Perhaps it’s old age, 
perhaps it’s sorrow.” 

So Amyas departed to the inn, and there, to his great joy, found 
Cary waiting for him, from whom he learned details, which must be 
kept for another chapter, and which I shall tell, for convenience’ sake, 
in my own words and not in his. 




CHAPTER XV. 

How Mr. cJohn Br i m Me combe wro&TsfooS 
Hie nature of an oaHi . 

“The Kynge of Spayn is a foul paynim, 

And lieveth on Mahound ; 

And pity it were that lady fayre 

Should marry a heathen hound. ’ ’ — Kyng Estmere. 

About six weeks after the duel, the miller at Stow had come up 
to the great house in much tribulation, to borrow the bloodhounds. 
Rose Salterne had vanished in the night, no man knew whither. 

Sir Richard was in Bideford: but the old steward took on himself to 
send for the keepers, and down went the serving-men to the Mill with 
all the idle lads of the parish at their heels, thinking a maiden-hunt 
very good sport: and of course taking a view of the case as favorable 
as possible to Rose. 

They reviled the miller and his wife roundly for hard-hearted old 
heathens; and had no doubt that they had driven the poor maid to 
throw herself over cliff, or drown herself in the sea; while all the 
women of Stow, on the other hand, were of unanimous opinion that the 
huzzy had “ gone off ” with some bad fellow; and that pride was sure 
to have a fall, and so forth. 

The facts of the case were, that all Rose’s trinkets were left behind, 
so that she had at least gone off honestly; and nothing seemed to be 
missing, but some of her linen, which old Anthony the steward broadly 
hinted was likely to be found in other people’s boxes. The only trace 
was a little footmark under her bedroom window. On that the blood- 
hound was laid (of course in leash) , and after a premonitory whimper, 
lifted up his mighty voice, and started bell-mouthed through the gar- 
den gate, and up the lane, towing behind him the panting keeper, till 
they reached the downs above, and went straight away for Marsland- 
mouth, where the whole posse comitatus pulled up breathless at the 
door of Lucy Passmore. 

Lucy, as perhaps I should have said before, was now a widow, and 


aoi 


M*. John Brimble corobe 

found her widowhood not altogether contrary to her interest. Her 
augury about her old man had been fulfilled; he had never returned 
since the night on which he put to sea with Eustace and the Jesuits. 

“ Some natural tears she shed, but dried them soon’' — 

as many of them, at least, as were not required for purposes of 
business; and then determined to prevent suspicion by a bold move; 
she started off to Stow, and told Lady Grenvile a most pathetic tale: 
how her husband had gone out to pollock fishing, and never returned ; 
but how she had heard horsemen gallop past her window in the dead 
of night, and was sure they must have been the Jesuits, and that they 
had carried off her old man by main force, and probably, after making 
use of his services, had killed and salted him down for provision on 
their voyage back to the Pope at Rome; after which she ended by 
entreating protection against those “ Popish skulkers up to Chapel,” 
who were sworn to do her a mischief; and by an appeal to Lady Gren- 
vile’s sense of justice, as to whether the Queen ought not to allow her a 
pension, for having had her heart’s love turned into a sainted martyr 
by the hands of idolatrous traitors. 

Lady Grenvile (who had a great opinion of Lucy’s medical skill, 
and always sent for her if one of the children had a “ housty,” i. e., sore 
throat) went forth and pleaded the case before Sir Richard with such 
effect, that Lucy was on the whole better off than ever for the next two 
or three years. But now — what had she to do with Rose’s disappear- 
ance? and, indeed, where was she herself? Her door was fast; and 
round it her flock of goats stood, crying in vain for her to come and 
milk them; while from the down above, her donkeys, wandering at 
their own sweet will, answered the bay of the bloodhound with a burst 
of harmony. 

“ They’m laughing at us, keper, they neddies; sure enough, we’m 
lost our labor here.” 

But the bloodhound, after working about the door a while, turned 
down the glen, and never stopped till he reached the margin of the sea. 

“ They’m taken water. Let’s go back, and rout out the old witch’s 
house.” 

“ ’Tis just like that old Lucy, to lock a poor maid into shame.” 

And returning, they attacked the cottage, and by a general plebis- 
citum, ransacked the little dwelling, partly in indignation, and partly 
if the truth be told, in the hope of plunder: but plunder there was none. 
Lucy had decamped with all her movable wealth, saving the huge 


302 


Westward Ho S 

black cat among the embers, who at the sight of the bloodhound van- 
ished up the chimney (some said with a strong smell of brimstone), 
and being viewed outside, was chased into the woods, where she lived, I 
doubt not, many happy years, a scourge to all the rabbits of the glen. 

The goats and donkeys were driven off up to Stow; and the mob 
returned, a little ashamed of themselves when their brief wrath was 
past; and a little afraid, too, of what Sir Richard might say. 

He, when he returned, sold the donkeys and goats, and gave the 
money to the poor, promising to refund the same, if Lucy returned 
and gave herself up to justice. But Lucy did not return; and her 
cottage, from which the neighbors shrank as from a haunted place, 
remained as she had left it, and crumbled slowly down to four fern- 
covered walls, past which the little stream went murmuring on from 
pool to pool — the only voice, for many a year to come, which broke the 
silence of that lonely glen. 

A few days afterward, Sir Richard, on his way from Bideford to 
Stow, looked in at Clovelly Court, and mentioned, with a“ by the by,” 
news which made Will Cary leap from his seat almost to the ceiling. 
What it was we know already. 

“ And there is no clue? ” asked old Cary; for his son was speechless. 

“ Only this; I hear that some fellow prowling about the cliffs that 
night saw a pinnace running for Lundy.” 

Will rose, and went hastily out of the room. 

In half an hour, he and three or four armed servants were on board 
a trawling-skiff, and away to Lundy. He did not return for three 
days, and then brought news; that an elderly man, seemingly a for- 
eigner, had been lodging for some months past in a part of the ruined 
Moresco Castle, which was tenanted by one John Braund; that a few 
weeks since a younger man, a foreigner also, had joined him from on 
board a ship : the ship a Flushinger, or Easterling of some sort. The 
ship came and went more than once; and the young man in her. A 
few days since, a lady and her maid, a stout woman, came with him up 
to the castle, and talked with the elder man a long while in secret; 
abode there all night; and then all three sailed in the morning. The 
fishermen on the beach had heard the young man call the other father. 
He was a very still man, much as a mass-priest might be. More they 
did not know, or did not choose to know. 

Whereon, Old Cary and Sir Richard sent Will on a second trip with 
the parish constable of Hartland (in which huge parish, for its sins, is 
situate the Isle of Lundy, ten miles out at sea) ; who returned with the 


303 


Mr. John Brimblecombe 

body of the hapless John Braund, farmer, fisherman, smuggler, etc.; 
which worthy, after much fruitless examination (wherein exanimate 
was afflicted with extreme deafness and loss of memory), departed to 
Exeter jail, on a charge of “ harboring priests, Jesuits, gypsies, and 
other suspect and traitorous persons.” 

Poor John Braund, whose motive for entertaining the said ugly 
customers had probably been not treason, but a wife, seven children, 
and arrears of rent, did not thrive under the change from the pure air 
of Lundy to the pestiferous one of Exeter jail, made infamous, but 
two years after (if I recollect right), by a “ black assizes,” nearly as 
fatal as that more notorious one at Oxford; for in it, “ whether by the 
stench of the prisoners, or by a stream of foul air,” judge, jury, 
counsel, and bystanders, numbering among them many members of 
the best families in Devon, sickened in court, and died miserably within 
a few days. 

John Braund, then, took the jail-fever in a week, and died raving 
in that noisome den: his secret, if he had one, perished with him, and 
nothing but vague suspicion was left as to Rose Salterne’s fate. That 
she had gone off with the Spaniard, few doubted; but whither, and in 
what character? On that last subject, to be sure, no mercy was shown 
to her by many a Bideford dame, who had hated the poor girl simply 
for her beauty; and by many a country lady, who had “ always ex- 
pected that the girl would be brought to ruin by the absurd notice, 
beyond what her station had a right to, which was taken of her: ” while 
every young maiden aspired to fill the throne which Rose had abdi- 
cated. So that, on the whole, Bideford considered itself as going on 
as well without poor Rose as it had done with her, or even better. 
And though she lingered in some hearts still as a fair dream, the 
business and the bustle of each day soon swept that dream away, and 
her place knew her no more. 

And Will Cary? 

He was for a while like a man distracted. He heaped himself with 
all manner of superfluous reproaches, for having (as he said) first 
brought the Rose into disgrace, and then driven her into the arms of 
the Spaniard; while St. Leger, who was a sensible man enough, tried 
in vain to persuade him that the fault was not his at all: that the two 
must have been attached to each other long before the quarrel; that it 
must have ended so, sooner or later; that old Salterne’s harshness, 
rather than Cary’s wrath, had hastened the catastrophe; and finally, 
that the Rose and her fortunes were, now that she had eloped with a 


804 


Westward Ho ! 

Spaniard, not worth troubling their heads about. Poor Will would 
not be so comforted. He wrote off to Frank at Whitehall, telling him 
the whole truth, calling himself all fools and villains, and entreating 
Frank’s forgiveness; to which he received an answer, in which Frank 
said that Will had no reason to accuse himself; that these strange 
attachments were due to a synastria, or sympathy of the stars, which 
ruled the destinies of each person, to fight against which was to fight 
against the heavens themselves ; that he, as a brother of the Rose, was 
bound to believe, nay, to assert at the sword’s point if need were, that 
the incomparable Rose of Torridge could make none but a worthy 
and virtuous choice; and that to the man whom she had honored by her 
affection was due on their part, Spaniard and Papist though he might 
be, all friendship, worship, and loyal faith forevermore. 

And honest Will took it all for gospel, little dreaming what agony 
of despair, what fearful suspicions, what bitter prayers, this letter had 
cost to the gentle heart of Francis Leigh. 

He showed the letter triumphantly to St. Leger; and he was quite 
wise enough to gainsay no word of it, at least aloud; but quite wise 
enough, also, to believe in secret that Frank looked on the matter in 
quite a different light : however, he contented himself with saying — 

“ The man is an angel as his mother is ! ” and there the matter 
dropped for a few days, till one came forward who had no mind to let 
it drop, and that was Jack Brimblecombe, now curate of Hartland 
town, and “ passing rich on forty pounds a year.” 

“ I hope no offense, Mr. William; but when are you and the rest 
going after — after her? ” The name stuck in his throat. 

Cary was taken aback. 

“ What’s that to thee, Catiline the blood-drinker? ” asked he, trying 
to laugh it off. 

“ What? Don’t laugh at me, sir, for it’s no laughing matter. I 
drank that night nought worse, I expect, than red wine. Whatever it 
was, we swore our oaths, Mr. Cary; and oaths are oaths, say I.” 

“ Of course, Jack, of course; but to go to look for her — and when 
we’ve found her, cut her lover’s throat — Absurd, Jack, even if she were 
worth looking for, or his throat worth cutting. Tut, tut, tut ” 

But Jack looked steadfastly in his face, and after some silence, 

“ How far is it to the Caraccas, then, sir? ” 

“ What is that to thee, man? ” 

“ Why, he was made governor thereof, I hear; so that would be the 
place to find her? ” 


Mf* <Johi> Brimblecombe 305 


“ You don’t mean to go hither to seek her? ” shouted Cary, forcing 
a laugh. 

“ That depends on whether I can go, sir; but if I can scrape the 
money together, or get a berth on board some ship, why, God’s will 
must be done.” 

Will looked at him, to see if he had been drinking, or gone mad; but 
the little pigs’ eyes were both sane and sober. 

Will knew no answer. To laugh at the poor fellow was easy 
enough; to deny that he was right, that he was a hero and cavalier, out- 
doing romance itself in faithfulness, not so easy; and Cary, in the first 
impulse, wished him at the bottom of the bay for shaming him. Of 
course, his own plan of letting ill alone was the rational, prudent, irre- 
proachable plan, and just what any gentleman in his senses would 
have done ; but here was a vulgar, fat curate, out of his senses, deter- 
mined not to let ill alone, but to do something, as Cary felt in his heart, 
of a far diviner stamp. 

“ Well,” said Jack, in his stupid steadfast way, “it’s a very bad look- 
out; but mother’s pretty well off, if father dies, and the maidens are 
stout wenches enough, and will make tidy servants, please the Lord. 
And you’ll see that they come to no harm, Mr. William, for old ac- 
quaintance’ sake, if I never come back.” 

Cary was silent with amazement. 

“And, Mr. William, you know me for an honest man, I hope. Will 
you lend me a five pound, and take my books in pawn for them, just 
to help me out? ” 

“ Are you mad, or in a dream? You will never find her! ” 

“ That’s no reason why I shouldn’t do my duty in looking for her, 
Mr. William.” 

“ But, my good fellow, even if you get to the Indies, you will be 
clapped into the Inquisition, and burned alive, as sure as your name is 

Jack.” 1 , _ 

“ I know that,” said he in a doleful tone; “ and a sore struggle of the 
flesh I have had about it; for I am a great coward, Mr. William, a 
dirty coward, and always was, as you know: but maybe the Lord will 
take care of me, as He does of little children and drunken men , and if 
not, Mr. Will, I’d sooner burn, and have it over, than go on this way 
any longer, I would! ” and Jack burst out blubbering. 

“ What way, my dear old lad? ” said Will, softened, as he well 


might be. 

“ Why, not— not to know 


whether — whether — whether she’s mar- 


806 


Westward Ho ! 

ried to him or not — her that I looked up to as an angel of God, as pure 
as the light of day; and knew she was too good for a poor pothead 
like me; and prayed for her every night, God knows, that she might 
marry a king, if there was one fit for her — and I not to know whether 
she’s living in sin or not, Mr. William. — It’s more than I can bear, and 
there’s an end of it. And if she is married to him, they keep no faith 
with heretics ; they can dissolve the marriage, or make away with her 
into the Inquisition ; burn her, Mr. Cary, as soon as burn me, the devils 
incarnate ! ” 

Cary shuddered; the fact, true and palpable as it was, had never 
struck him before. 

“ Yes! or make her deny her God by torments, if she hasn’t done it 

already for love to that I know how love will make a body sell 

his soul, for I’ve been in love. Don’t laugh at me, Mr. Will, or I 
shall go mad ! ” 

“ God knows, I was never less inclined to laugh at you in my life, 
my brave old Jack.” 

“ Is it so, then? Bless you for that word! ” and Jack held out his 
hand. “ But what will become of my soul, after my oath, if I don’t 
seek her out, just to speak to her, to warn her, for God’s sake, even if 
it did no good; just to set before her the Lord’s curse on idolatry and 
Antichrist, and those who deny Him for the sake of any creature, 
though I can’t think He would be hard on her, — for who could? But 
I must speak all the same. The Lord has laid the burden on me, and 
done it must be. God help me ! ” 

“ Jack,” said Cary, “ if this is your duty, it is others’.” 

“ No, sir, I don’t say that; you’re a layman, but I am a deacon, and 
the chaplain of you all, and sworn to seek out Christ’s sheep scattered 
up and down this naughty world, and that innocent lamb first of 
all.” 

“ You have sheep at Hartland, Jack, already.” 

“ There’s plenty better than I will tend them, when I am gone; but 
none that will tend her, because none love her like me, and they won’t 
venture. Who will? It can’t be expected, and no shame to them? ” 

“ I wonder what Amyas Leigh would say to all this, if he were at 
home? ” 

“ Say? He’d do. He isn’t one for talking. He’d go through fire 
and water for her, you trust him. Will Cary; and call me an ass if he 
won’t.” 

“ Will you wait then till he comes back, and ask him? ” 


307 


Mr. John Brimbleeamb© 

“ He may not be back for a year and more/’ 

“ Hear reason, J ack. If you will wait like a rational and patient 
man, instead of rushing blindfold on your ruin, something may be 
done.” 

“ You think so! ” 

“ I cannot promise; but ” 

“ But promise me one thing. Do you tell Mr. Frank what I say— 
or rather, I’ll warrant, if I knew the truth, he has said the very same 
thing himself already.” 

“ You are out there, old man; for here is his own handwriting.” 

J ack read the letter and sighed bitterly. 

“ Well, I did take him for another sort of fine gentleman. Still, 
if my duty isn’t his, it’s mine all the same. I judge no man; but 
I go, Mr. Cary.” 

“ But go you shall not till Amyas returns. As I live, I will tell 
your father, Jack, unless you promise; and you dare not disobey him.” 

“ I don’t know even that, for conscience’ sake,” said Jack, doubt- 
fully. 

“At least, you stay and dine here, old fellow, and we will settle 
whether you are to break the fifth commandment or not, over good 
brewed sack.” 

Now a good dinner was (as we know) what Jack loved, and loved 
too oft in vain; so he submitted for the nonce, and Cary thought, ere 
he went, that he had talked him pretty well round. At least he went 
home, and was seen no more for a week. 

But at the end of that time he returned, and said with a joyful 
voice — 

“ I have settled all, Mr. Will. The parson of Welcombe will serve 
my church for two Sundays, and I am away for London town, to 
speak to Mr. Frank.” 

“ To London? How wilt get there? ” 

“ On Shanks his mare,” said Jack, pointing to his bandy legs. 
“ But I expect I can get a lift on board of a coaster so far as Bristol, 
and it’s no way on to signify, I hear.” 

Cary tried in vain to dissuade him ; and then forced on him a small 
loan, with which away went Jack, and Cary heard no more of him for 
three weeks. 

At last he walked into Clovelly Court again just before supper- 
time, thin and leg-weary, and sat himself down among the serving-men 
till Will appeared. 


808 


Westward Ho ! 

Will took him up above the salt, and made much of him (which in- 
deed the honest fellow much needed), and after supper asked him in 
private how he had sped. 

“ I have learned a lesson, Mr. William. I’ve learned that there is 
one on earth loves her better than I, if she had but had the wit to have 
taken him.” 

“ But what says he of going to seek her? ” 

“ He says what I say, Go! and he says what you say, Wait.” 

“ Go? Impossible! How can that agree with his letter? ” 

“ That’s no concern of mine. Of course, being nearer heaven than 
I am, he sees clearer what he should say and do than I can see for him. 
Oh, Mr. Will, that’s not a man, lie’s an angel of God; but he’s dying, 
Mr. Will.” 

“ Dying?” 

“ Yes, faith, of love for her. I can see it in his eyes, and hear it in 
his voice; but I am of tougher hide, and stiffer clay, and so you see I 
can’t die even if I tried. But I’ll obey my betters, and wait.” 

And so Jack went home to his parish that very evening, weary as he 
was, in spite of all entreaties to pass the night at Clovelly. But he 
had left behind him thoughts in Cary’s mind, which gave their owner 
no rest by day or night, till the touch of a seeming accident made them 
all start suddenly into shape, as a touch of the freezing water covers it 
in an instant with crystals of ice. 

He was lounging (so he told Amyas) one murky day on Bideford 
quay, when up came Mr. Salterne. Cary had shunned him of late, 
partly from delicacy, partly from dislike of his supposed hard-hearted- 
ness. But this time they happened to meet full ; and Cary could not 
pass without speaking to him. 

“ Well, Mr. Salterne, and how goes on the shipping trade? ” 

“ Well enough, sir, if some of you young gentlemen would but 
follow Mr. Leigh’s example, and go forth to find us stay-at-homes 
new markets for our ware.” 

“ What? you want to be rid of us, eh? ” 

“ I don’t know why I should, sir. We shan’t cross each other now, 
sir, whatever might have been once. But if I were you, I should be 
in the Indies about now, if I were not fighting the Queen’s battles 
nearer home.” 

“ In the Indies? I should make but a poor hand of Drake’s trade.” 
And so the conversation dropped; but Cary did not forget the hint. 

“ So, lad, to make an end of a long story,” said he to Amyas; “ if 


309 


JVlx. John 3nn)h!ecorobe 

you are minded to take the old man’s offer, so am I; and Westward-ho 
with you, come foul come fair.” 

“ It will be but a wild-goose chase, Will.” 

“ If she is with him, we shall find her at La Guayra. If she is not, 
and the villain has cast her off down the wind, that will be only an 
additional reason for making an example of him.” 

“And if neither of them are there, Will, the Plate-fleets will be; so 
it will be our own shame if we come home empty-handed. But will 
your father let you run such a risk? ” 

“ My father! ” said Cary, laughing. “ He has just now so good 
hope of a long string of little Carys to fill my place, that he will be in 
no lack of an heir, come what will.” 

“ Little Carys? ” 

“ I tell you truth. I think he must have had a sly sup of that 
fountain of perpetual youth, which our friend Don Guzman’s grand- 
father went to seek in Florida; for some twelvemonth since, he must 
needs marry a tenant’s buxom daughter; and Mistress Abishag Jewell 
has brought him one fat baby already. So I shall go, back to Ireland, 
or with you: but somewhere. I can’t abide the thing’s squalling, any 
more than I can seeing Mistress Abishag sitting in my poor dear 
mother’s place, and informing me every other day that she is come of 
an illustrious house, because she is (or is not) third cousin seven times 
removed to my father’s old friend, Bishop Jewell of glorious memory. 
I had three-parts of a quarrel with the dear old man the other day; 
for after one of her peacock-bouts, I couldn’t for the life of me help 
saying, that as the Bishop had written an Apology for the people of 
England, my father had better conjure up his ghost to write an apol- 
ogy for him, and head it, ‘ Why green heads should grow on gray 
shoulders.’ ” 

“ You impudent villain ! And what did he say? ” 

“ Laughed till he cried again, and told me if I did not like it I might 
leave it; which is just what I intend to do. Only mind, if we go, we 
must needs take Jack Brimblecombe with us, or he will surely heave 
himself over Harty-point, and his ghost will haunt us to our dying 
day.” 

“ Jack shall go. None deserves it better.” 

After which there was a long consultation on practical matters, and 
it was concluded that Amyas should go up to London and sound 
Frank and his mother, before any further steps were taken. The 
other brethren of the Rose were scattered far and wide, each at his 


310 Westward Ho I 

post, and St. Leger had returned to his uncle, so that it would be un- 
fair to them, as well as a considerable delay, to demand of them any 
fulfilment of their vow. And, as Amyas sagely remarked, “ Too 
many cooks spoil the broth, and half a dozen gentlemen aboard one 
ship are as bad as two kings of Brentford.” 

With which maxim he departed next morning for London, leaving 
Yeo with Cary. 



PHILIP THE SECOND 
♦ KING of .SPAIN- 


CHAPTER XVI . 

The most chivalrous adventure of Hie 
gooa ship -Rose? 

“ He is brass within, and steel without, 

With beams on his topcastle strong; 

And eighteen pieces of ordinance 
He carries on either side along.” 

Sir Andrew Barton. 


Let us take boat, as Amyas did, at Whitehall-stairs, and slip down 
ahead of him under old London Bridge, and so to Deptford Creek, 
where remains, as it were embalmed, the famous ship, Pelican , in which 
Drake had sailed round the world. There she stands, drawn up high 
and dry upon the sedgy bank of Thames, like an old warrior resting 
after his toil. Nailed upon her mainmast are epigrams and verses in 
honor of her and of her captain, three of which, by the Winchester 
scholar, Camden gives in his History ; and Elizabeth’s self consecrated 
her solemnly, and having banqueted on board, there and then honored 
Drake with the dignity of knighthood. “At which time a bridge of 
planks, by which they came on board, broke under the press of people, 
and fell down with a hundred men upon it, who, notwithstanding, had 
none of them any harm. So as that ship may seem to have been built 
under a lucky planet.” 

There she has remained since as a show, and moreover as a sort of 
dining-hall for jovial parties from the City; one of which would seem 
to be on board this afternoon, to judge from the flags which bedizen 
the masts, the sounds of revelry and savory steams which issue from 
those windows which once were port-holes, and the rushing to and fro 
along the river brink, and across that lucky bridge, of white-aproned 
waiters from the neighboring Pelican Inn. A great feast is evidently 
toward, for with those white-aproned waiters are gay serving men, 
wearing on their shoulders the City-badge. The lord mayor is giving 
a dinner to certain gentlemen of the Leicester house party, who are 


312 


Westward Ho ! 

interested in foreign discoveries; and what place so fit for such a feast 
as the Pelican itself? 

Look at the men all around; a nobler company you will seldom see. 
Especially, too, if you be Americans, look at their faces, and reverence 
them; for to them and to their wisdom you owe the existence of your 
mighty father-land. 

At the head of the table sits the lord mayor; whom all readers will 
recognize at once, for he is none other than that famous Sir Edward 
Osborne, clothworker, and ancestor of the Dukes of Leeds, whose 
romance nowadays is in every one’s hands. He is aged, but not 
changed, since he leaped from the window upon London Bridge into 
the roaring tide below, to rescue the infant who is now his wife. The 
chivalry and promptitude of the ’prentice-boy have grown and hard- 
ened into the thoughtful daring of the wealthy merchant adventurer. 
There he sits, a right kingly man, with my Lord Earl of Cumberland 
on his right hand, and Walter Raleigh on his left; the three talk to- 
gether in a low voice on the chance of there being vast and rich coun- 
tries still undiscovered between Florida and the River of Canada. 
Raleigh’s half-scientific declamation and his often quotations of Doc- 
tor Dee the conjuror, have less effect on Osborne than on Cumberland 
(who tried many an adventure to foreign parts, and failed in all of 
them; apparently for the simple reason that, instead of going himself, 
he sent other people), and Raleigh is fain to call to his help the quiet 
student who sits on his left hand, Richard Hakluyt, of Oxford. But 
he is deep in talk with a reverend elder, whose long white beard flows 
almost to his waist, and whose face is furrowed by a thousand storms; 
Anthony Jenkinson by name, the great Asiatic traveler, who is dis- 
coursing to the Christchurch virtuoso of reindeer-sledges and Siberian 
steppes, and of the fossil ivory, plain proof of Noah’s flood, which the 
Tungoos dig from the ice-cliffs of the Arctic sea. Next to him is 
Christopher Carlile, Walsingham’s son-in-law (as Sidney also is now), 
a valiant captain, afterward general of the soldiery in Drake’s trium- 
phant West Indian raid of 1585, with whom a certain Bishop of 
Carthagena will hereafter drink good wine. He is now busy talking 
with Alderman Hart the grocer, Sheriff Spencer the clothworker, and 
Charles Leigh (Amyas’s merchant-cousin), and with Aldworth the 
mayor of Bristol, and William Salterne, alderman thereof, and cousin 
of our friend of Bideford. For Carlile, and Secretary Walsingham 
also, have been helping them heart and soul for the last two years to 
collect money for Humphrey and Adrian Gilbert’s great adventures 


313 


The good ship “Rose" 

to the Northwest, on one of which Carlile was indeed to have sailed 
himself, but did not go after all; I never could discover for what 
reason. 

On the opposite side of the table is a group, scarcely less interesting. 
Martin Frobisher and John Davis, the pioneers of the Northwest pas- 
sage, are talking with Alderman Sanderson, the great geographer and 
“ setter forth of globes ” ; with Mr. Towerson, Sir Gilbert Peckham, 
our old acquaintance Captain John Winter, and last, but not least, 
with Philip Sidney himself, who, with his accustomed courtesy, has 
given up his rightful place toward the head of the table, that he may 
have a knot of virtuosi all to himself; and has brought with him, of 
course, his two especial intimates, Mr. Edward Dyer and Mr. Francis 
Leigh. They too are talking of the Northwest passage; and Sidney 
is lamenting that he is tied to diplomacy and courts, and expressing his 
envy of old Martin Frobisher in all sorts of pretty compliments; to 
which the other replies that, 

“ It’s all very fine to talk of here, a sailing on dry land with a good 
glass of wine before you; but you’d find it another guess sort of busi- 
ness, knocking about among the icebergs with your beard frozen fast 
to your ruff, Sir Philip, specially if you were a bit squeamish about the 
stomach.” 

“ That were a slight matter to endure, my dear sir, if by it I could 
win the honor which Her Majesty bestowed on you, when her own 
ivory hand waved a farewell kerchief to your ship from the windows 
of Greenwich Palace.” 

“ Well, sir, folks say you have no reason to complain of lack of 
favors, as you have no reason to deserve lack; and if you can get them 
by staying ashore, don’t you go to sea to look for more, say I. Eh, 
Master Towerson? ” 

Towerson’s gray beard, which has stood many a foreign voyage, 
both fair and foul, wags grim assent. But at this moment a waiter 
enters, and — 

“ Please my Lord Mayor’s Worship, there is a tall gentleman out- 
side, would speak with the Right Honorable Sir Walter Raleigh.” 

“ Show him in, man. Sir Walter’s friends are ours.” 

Amyas enters, and stands hesitating in the doorway. 

“ Captain Leigh! ” cry half a dozen voices. 

« Why did you not walk in, sir? ” says Osborne. “ You should 
know vour way well enough between these decks. 

“ Well enough, my lords and gentlemen. But Sir Walter — you 


814 


Westward Ho I 

will excuse me,” — and he gave Raleigh a look which was enough for 
his quick wit. Turning pale as death, he rose, and followed Ainyas 
into an adjoining cabin. They were five minutes together; and then 
Ainyas came out alone. 

In few words he told the company the sad story which we already 
know. Ere it was ended, noble tears were glistening on some of those 
stern faces. 

“ The old Egyptians/’ said Sir Edward Osborne, “ when they ban- 
queted, set a corpse among their guests, for a memorial of human 
vanity. Have we forgotten God and our own weakness in this our 
feast, thajt He Himself has sent us thus a message from the dead? ” 

“ Nay, my Lord Mayor,” said Sidney, “ not from the dead, but from 
the realm of everlasting life.” 

“Amen! ” answered Osborne. “ But, gentlemen, our feast is at an 
end. There are those here who would drink on merrily, as brave men 
should, in spite of the private losses of which they have just had news; 
but none here who can drink with the loss of so great a man still ring- 
ing in his ears.” 

It was true. Though many of the guests had suffered severely by 
the failure of the expedition, they had utterly forgotten that fact in 
the awful news of Sir Humphrey’s death; and the feast broke up sadly 
and hurriedly, while each man asked his neighbor, “ What will the 
Queen say? ” 

Raleigh reentered in a few minutes, but was silent, and pressing 
many an honest hand as he passed, went out to call a wherry, beckon- 
ing Ainyas to follow him. Sidney, Cumberland, and Frank went 
with them in another boat, leaving the two to talk over the sad de- 
tails. 

They disembarked at Whitehall-stairs ; Raleigh, Sidney, and Cum- 
berland went to the palace; and the two brothers to their mother’s 
lodgings. 

Amyas had prepared his speech to Frank about Rose Salterne, but 
now that it was come to the point, he had not courage to begin, and 
longed that Frank would open the matter. Frank, too, shrank from 
what he knew must come, and all the more because he was ignorant 
that Amyas had been to Bideford, or knew aught of the Rose’s dis- 
appearance. 

So they went up-stairs; and it was a relief to both of them to find 
that their mother was at the Abbey; for it was for her sake that both 
dreaded what was coming. So they went and stood in the bay-window 


315 


The good ship “Rose®* 

which looked out upon the river, and talked of things indifferent, and 
looked earnestly at each other’s faces by the fading light, for it was 
now three years since they had met. 

Years and events had deepened the contrast between the two 
brothers ; and F rank smiled with affectionate pride as he looked up in 
Amyas’s face, and saw that he was no longer merely the rollicking 
handy sailor-lad, but the self-confident and stately warrior, showing 
in every look and gesture 

“The reason firm, the temperate will, 

Endurance, foresight, strength and skill / 9 

worthy of one whose education had been begun by such men as Drake 
and Grenvile, and finished by such as Raleigh and Gilbert. His long 
locks were now cropped close to the head; but as a set-off, the lips and 
chin were covered with rich golden beard; his face was browned by a 
thousand suns and storms ; a long scar, the trophy of some Irish fight, 
crossed his right temple; his huge figure had gained breadth in pro- 
portion to its height ; and his hand, as it lay upon the window-sill, was 
hard and massive as a smith’s. Frank laid his own upon it, and 
sighed ; and Amyas looked down, and started at the contrast between 
the two — so slender, bloodless, all but transparent, were the delicate 
fingers of the courtier. Amyas looked anxiously into his brother’s 
face. It was changed, indeed, since they last met. The brilliant red 
was still on either cheek, but the white had become dull and opaque; 
the lips were pale, the features sharpened; the eyes glittered with un- 
natural fire: and when Frank told Amyas that he looked aged, Amyas 
could not help thinking that the remark was far more true of the 
speaker himself. 

Trying to shut his eyes to the palpable truth, he went on with his 
chat, asking the names of one building after another. 

“And so this is old Father Thames, with his bank of palaces? ” 

“ Yes. His banks are stately enough: yet, you see, he cannot stay 
to look at them. He hurries down to the sea; and the sea into the 
ocean; and the ocean Westward-ho, forever. All things move West- 
ward-ho. Perhaps we may move that way ourselves, some day, 
Amyas.” 

“ What do you mean by that strange talk? ” 

“ Only that'the ocean follows the primum mobile of the heavens, and 
flows forever from east to west. Is there anything so strange in my 


316 


Westward Ho I 

thinking of that, when I am just come from a party where we have 
been drinking success to Westward-ho? ” 

“And much good has come of it! I have lost the best friend and 
the noblest captain upon earth, not to mention all my little earnings, 
in that same confounded gulf of Westward-ho.” 

“ Yes, Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s star has set in the west — why not? 
Sun, moon, and planets sink into the west: why not the meteors of this 
lower world? why not a will-o’-the-wisp like me, Amy as? ” 

“ God forbid, Frank! ” 

“ Why, then? Is not the west the land of peace, and the land of 
dreams? Do not our hearts tell us so each time we look upon the set- 
ting sun, and long to float away with him upon the golden-cushioned 
clouds? They bury men with their faces to the east. I should rather 
have mine turned to the west, Amyas, when I die; for I cannot but 
think it some divine instinct which made the ancient poets guess that 
Elysium lay beneath the setting sun. It is bound up in the heart of 
man, that longing for the west. I complain of no one for fleeing away 
thither beyond the utmost sea, as David wished to flee, and be at 
peace.” 

“ Complain of no one for fleeing thither? ” asked Amyas. “ That is 
more than I do.” 

Frank looked inquiringly at him; and then — 

“ No. If I had complained of any one, it would have been of you 
just now, for seeming to be tired of going Westward-ho.” 

“ Do you wish me to go, then? ” 

“ God knows,” said Frank, after a moment’s pause. “ But I must 
tell you now, I suppose, once and for all. That has happened at Bide- 
ford which ” 

“ Spare us both, Frank; I know all. I came through Bideford on 
my way hither ; and came hither not merely to see you and my mother, 
but to ask your advice and her permission.” 

“ True heart! noble heart! ” cried Frank. “ I knew you would be 
staunch! ” 

“ Westward-ho it is, then? ” 

“ Can we escape? ” 

“ We? ” 

“Amyas, does not that which binds you bind me? ” 

Amyas started back, and held Frank by the shoulders at arm’s 
length; as he did so, he could feel through, that his brother’s arms were 
but skin and bone. 


317 


The fyOod ship “Rose** 


“ You? Dearest man, a month of it would kill 5 r ou! ” 

F rank smiled, and tossed his head on one side in his pretty way. 

“ I belong to the school of Thales, who held that the ocean is the 
mother of all life; and feel no more repugnance at returning to her 
bosom again than Humphrey Gilbert did.” 

“ But Frank, — my mother? ” 

“ My mother knows all; and would not have us unworthy of her.”’ 

“ Impossible ! She will never give you up ! ” 

“All things are possible to them that believe in God, my brother; 
and she believes. But, indeed, Doctor Dee, the wise man, gave her 
but this summer I know not what of prognostics and diagnostics con- 
cerning me. I am born, it seems, under a cold and watery planet, and 
need, if I am to be long lived, to go nearer to the vivifying heat of the 
sun, and there bask out my little life, like fly on wall. To tell truth, 
he has bidden me spend no more winters here in the east ; but return 
to our native sea-breezes, there to warm my frozen lungs; and has so 
filled my mother’s fancy with stories of sick men, who were given up 
for lost in Germany and France, and yet renewed their youth, like any 
serpent or eagle, by going to Italy, Spain, and the Canaries, that she 
herself will be more ready to let me go, than I to leave her all alone. 
And yet I must go, Amyas. It is not merely that my heart pants, as 
Sidney’s does, as every gallant’s ought, to make one of your noble 
choir of Argonauts, who are now replenishing the earth and subduing 
it for God and for the Queen; it is not merely, Amyas, that love calls 
me — love tyrannous and uncontrollable, strengthened by absence, and 

deepened by despair; but honor, Amyas — my oath ” 

And he paused for lack of breath, and bursting into a violent fit of 
coughing, leaned on his brother’s shoulder, while Amyas cried: 

“ Fools, fools that we were — that I was, I mean — to take that fan- 
tastical vow! ” 

“ Not so,” answered a gentle voice from behind: “ you vowed for the 
sake of peace on earth, and good-will toward men, and ‘ Blessed are 
the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.’ No, 
my sons, be sure that such self-sacrifice as you have shown will meet 
its full reward at the hand of Him who sacrificed Himself for you.” 

“ O mother! mother! ” said Amyas, “ and do you not hate the very 
sight of me— come here to take away your first-born? ” 

“ My boy, God takes him, and not you. And if I dare believe in 
such predictions, Doctor Dee assured me that some exceeding honor 
awaited you both in the west, to each of you according to your deserts.” 


818 


Westward H© S 

“Ah! ” said Amy as. “ My blessing, I suppose, will be like Esau’s, 
to live by my sword; while Jacob here, the spiritual man, inherits the 
kingdom of heaven, and an angel’s crown.” 

“ Be it what it may, it will surely be a blessing, as long as you are 
such, my children, as you have been. At least my Frank will be safe 
from the intrigues of court, and the temptations of the world. Would 
that I too could go with you, and share in your glory! Come, now,” 
said she, laying her head upon Amyas’s breast, and looking up into his 
face with one of her most winning smiles, “ I have heard of heroic 
mothers ere now, who went forth with their sons to battle, and cheered 
them on to victory. Why should I not go with you on a more peaceful 
errand? I could nurse the sick, if there were any; I could perhaps 
have speech of that poor girl, and win her back more easily than you. 
She might listen to words from a woman — a woman, too, who has 
loved — which she could not hear from men. At least I could mend 
and wash for you. I suppose it is as easy to play the good housewife 
afloat as on shore? Come, now! ” 

Amyas looked from one to the other. 

“ God only knows which of the two is less fit to go. Mother! 
mother ! you know not what you ask. Frank ! Frank ! I do not want 
you with me. This is a sterner matter than either of you fancy it to 
be ; one that must be worked out, not with kind words, but with sharp 
shot and cold steel.” 

“ How? ” cried both together, aghast. 

“ I must pay my men, and pay my fellow-adventurers; and I must 
j>ay them with Spanish gold. And what is more, I cannot, as a loyal 
subject of the Queen’s, go to the Spanish Main with a clear conscience 
on my own private quarrel, unless I do all the harm that my hand finds 
to do, by day and night, to her enemies, and the enemies of God.” 

“ What nobler knight-errantry? ” said Frank, cheerfully; but Mrs. 
Leigh shuddered. 

“ What! Frank too? ” she said, half to herself; but her sons knew 
what she meant. Amyas’s warlike life, honorable and righteous as 
she knew it to be, she had borne as a sad necessity: but that Frank as 
well should become “ a man of blood,” was more than her gentle heart 
could face at first sight. That one youthful duel of his he had care- 
fully concealed from her, knowing her feeling on such matters. And 
it seemed too dreadful to her to associate that gentle spirit with all the 
ferocities and the carnage of a battle-field. “And yet,” said she to 
herself, “ is this but another of the self-willed idols which I must re- 


319 


The ship *' Rose ** 

nounce one by one? ” And then, catching at a last hope, she an- 
swered— 

h rank must at least ask the Queen’s leave to go ; and if she per- 
mits, how can I gainsay her wisdom? ” 

And so the conversation dropped, sadly enough. 

But now began a fresh perplexity in Frank’s soul, which amused 
Amyas at first, when it seemed merely jest, but nettled him a good deal 
when he found it earnest. For Frank looked forward to asking the 
Queen’s permission for his voyage with the most abject despondency 
and terror. Two or three days passed before he could make up his 
mind to ask for an interview with her ; and he spent the time in making 
as much interest with Leicester, Hatton, and Sidney, as if he were 
about to sue for a reprieve from the scaffold. 

So said Amyas, remarking, further, that the Queen could not cut his 
head off for wanting to go to sea. 

“ But what axe so sharp as her frown? ” said Frank, in most lugu- 
brious tone. 

Amyas began to whistle in a very rude way. 

“Ah, my brother, you cannot comprehend the pain of parting from 
her.” 

“ No, I can’t. I would die for the least hair of her royal head, God 
bless it! but I could live very well from now till Doomsday without 
ever setting eyes on the said head.” 

“ Plato’s Troglodytes regretted not that sunlight which they had 
never beheld.” 

Amyas, not understanding this recondite conceit, made no answer to 
it, and there the matter ended for the time. But at last Frank ob- 
tained his audience; and after a couple of hours’ absence returned quite 
pale and exhausted. 

“ Thank Heaven, it is over! She was very angry at first — what 
else could she be? — and upbraided me with having set my love so low. 
I could only answer, that my fatal fault was committed before the 
sight of her had taught me what was supremely lovely, and only 
worthy of admiration. Then she accused me of disloyalty in having 
taken an oath which bound me to the service of another than her. I 
confessed my sin with tears, and when she threatened punishment, 
pleaded that the offense had avenged itself heavily already, — for what 
worse punishment than exile from the sunlight of her presence, into 
the outer darkness which reigns where she is not? Then she was 
pleased to ask me, how I could dare, as her sworn servant, to desert her 


320 


Westward Ho ! 

side in such dangerous times as these ; and asked me how I should rec- 
oncile it to my conscience, if on my return I found her dead by the 
assassin’s knife? At which most pathetic demand I could only throw 
myself at once on my own knees and her mercy, and so awaited my 
sentence. Whereon, with that angelic pity which alone makes her 
awfulness endurable, she turned to Hatton and asked, ‘ What say you, 
Mouton? Is he humbled sufficiently? ’ and so dismissed me.” 

“ Heigh ho! ” yawned Amyas: 

“If the bridge had been stronger, 

My tale had been longer. ’ ’ 

“Amyas ! Amyas ! ” quoth Frank, solemnly, “ you know not what 
power over the soul has the native and God-given majesty of royalty 
(awful enough in itself), when to it is superadded the wisdom of the 
sage, and therewithal the tenderness of the woman. Had I my will, 
there should be in every realm not a salique, but an anti-salique law: 
whereby no kings, but only queens should rule mankind. Then would 
weakness and not power be to man the symbol of divinity; love, and 
not cunning, would be the arbiter of every cause; and chivalry, not 
fear, the spring of all obedience.” 

“ Humph ! There’s some sense in that,” quoth Amyas. “ I’d run 
a mile for a woman when I would not walk a yard for a man; and — 
Who is this our mother is bringing in? The handsomest fellow I ever 
saw in my life ! ” 

Amyas was not far wrong; for Mrs. Leigh’s companion was none 
other than Mr. Secretary, Amyas’s Smerwick Fort acquaintance ; alias 
Colin Clout, alias Immerito, alias Edmund Spenser. Some half-jest- 
ing conversation had seemingly been passing between the poet and the 
saint; for as they came in she said with a smile (which was somewhat 
of a forced one) : 

“ Well, my dear sons, you are sure of immortality, at least on earth; 
for Mr. Spenser has been vowing to me to give your adventure a whole 
canto to itself in his Fairy Queen.” 

“And you no less, madam,” said Spenser. “ What were the story 
of the Gracchi worth without the figure of Cornelia? If I honor the 
fruit, I must not forget the stem which bears it. Frank, I congratu- 
late you.” 

“ Then you know the result of my interview, mother? ” 

“ I know everything, and am content,” said Mrs. Leigh. 


The good ship “Rose- «i 

“ Mrs. Leigh has reason to be content/’ said Spenser, “ with that 
which is but her own likeness.” 

Spare your flattery to an old woman, Mr. Spenser. When, pray, 
did I (with a most loving look at Frank) refuse knighthood for duty’s 
sake? ” 

“ Knighthood? ” cried Amyas. “ You never told me that, Frank! ” 
That may well be, Captain Leigh,” said Spenser; “but believe 
me, Her Majesty (so Hatton assures me) told him this day, no less 
than that by going on this quest he deprived himself of that highest 
earthly honor, which crowned heads are fain to seek from their own 
subjects.” 

Spenser did not exaggerate. Knighthood was then the prize of 
merit only; and one so valuable, that Elizabeth herself said, when 
asked why she did not bestow a peerage upon some favorite, that hav- 
ing already knighted him, she had nothing better to bestow. It re- 
mained for young Essex to begin the degradation of the order in his 
hapless Irish campaign, and for James to complete that degradation 
by his novel method of raising money by the sale of baronetcies; a new 
order of hereditary knighthood which was the laughing-stock of the 
day, and which (however venerable it may have since become) reflects 
anything but honor upon its first possessors. 

“ I owe you no thanks, Colin,” said Frank, “ for having broached 
my secret: but I have lost nothing after all. There is still an order of 
knighthood in which I may win my spurs, even though Her Majesty 
refuse me the accolade.” 

“ What, then? you will not take it from a foreign prince? ” 

Frank smiled. 

“ Have you never read of that knighthood which is eternal in the 
heavens, and of those true cavaliers whom John saw in Patmos, riding 
on white horses, clothed in fine linen white and clean, knights-errant in 
the everlasting war against the false prophet and the beast? Let me 
but become worthy of their ranks hereafter, what matter whether I be 
called Sir Frank on earth? ” 

“ My son,” said Mrs. Leigh, “ remember that they follow one whose 
vesture is dipped, not in the blood of Plis enemies, but in His own.” 

“ I have remembered it for many a day; and remembered, too, that 
the garments of the knights may need the same tokens as their Cap- 
tain’s.” 

“ Oh, Frank! Frank! is not His precious blood enough to cleanse 
all sin, without the sacrifice of our own? ” 


322 Westward Ho I 

“ We may need no more than His blood, mother, and yet He may 
need ours,” said Frank. 

********* 

How that conversation ended I know not, nor whether Spenser ful- 
filled his purpose of introducing the two brothers and their mother into 
his Fairy Queen. If so, the manuscripts must have been lost among 
those which perished (along with Spenser’s baby) in the sack of Kil- 
colman by the Irish in 1598. But we need hardly regret the loss of 
them; for the temper of the Leighs and their mother is the same which 
inspires every canto of that noblest of poems ; and which inspired, too, 
hundreds in those noble days, when the chivalry of the middle ages was 
wedded to the free thought and enterprise of the new. 

********* 

So mother and sons returned to Bideford, and set to work. Frank 
mortgaged a farm; Will Cary did the same (having some land of his 
own from his mother) . Old Salterne grumbled at any man save him- 
self spending a penny on the voyage, and forced on the adventurers a 
good ship of two hundred tons burden, and five hundred pounds to- 
ward fitting her out; Mrs. Leigh worked day and night at clothes and 
comforts of every kind; Amyas had nothing to give but his time and 
his brains: but, as Salterne said, the rest would have been of little use 
without them; and day after day he and the old merchant were on 
board the ship, superintending with their own eyes the fitting of every 
rope and nail. Cary went about beating up recruits; and made, with 
his jests and his frankness, the best of crimps: while John Brimble- 
combe, beside himself with joy, toddled about after him from tavern 
to tavern, and quay to quay, exalted for the time being (as Cary told 
him) into a second Peter the Hermit; and so fiercely did he preach a 
crusade against the Spaniards, through Bideford and Appledore, 
Clovelly and Ilfracombe, that Amyas might have had a hundred and 
fifty loose fellows in the first fortnight. But he knew better: still 
smarting from the effects of a similar haste in the Newfoundland ad- 
venture, he had determined to take none but picked men; and by dint 
of labor he obtained them. 

Only one scapegrace did he take into his crew, named Parracombe ; 
and by that scapegrace hangs a tale. He was an old schoolfellow of 
his at Bideford, and son of a merchant in that town — one of those un- 
lucky members who are “ nobody’s enemy but their own ” — a hand- 
some, idle, clever fellow, who used his scholarship, of which he had 
picked up some smattering, chiefly to justify his own escapades, and to 


The good ship -Rose** 323 

string songs together. Having drunk all that he was worth at home, 
he had in a penitent fit forsworn liquor, and tormented Amyas into 
taking him to sea, where he afterward made as good a sailor as any 
one else, but sorely scandalized J ohn Brimblecombe by all manner of 
heretical arguments, half Anacreontic, half smacking of the rather 
loose doctrines of that “ Family of Love ” which tormented the ortho- 
doxy and morality of more than one bishop of Exeter. Poor Will 
P arracombe ! he was born a few centuries too early. Had he but lived 
now, he might have published a volume or two of poetry, and then set- 
tled down on the staff of a newspaper. Had he even lived thirty years 
later than he did, he might have written frantic tragedies or filthy 
comedies for the edification of J ames’s profligate metropolis, and roys- 
tered it in taverns with Marlowe, to die as Marlowe did, by a foot- 
man’s sword in a drunken brawl. But in those stern days such weak 
and hysterical spirits had no fair vent for their “ humors,” save in 
being reconciled to the Church of Rome, and plotting with Jesuits to 
assassinate the Queen, as Parry, and Somerville, and many other mad- 
men, did. 

So, at least, some Jesuit or other seems to have thought, shortly 
after Amyas had agreed to give the spendthrift a berth on board. For 
one day Amyas, going down to Appledore about his business, was 
called into the little “ Mariners’ Rest ” inn, to extract therefrom poor 
Will Parracombe, who (in spite of his vow) was drunk and out- 
rageous, and had vowed the death of the landlady and all her kin. So 
Amyas fetched him out by the collar, and walked him home thereby to 
Bideford; during which walk Will told him a long and confused story; 
how an Egyptian rogue had met him that morning on the sands by 
Boathythe, offered to tell his fortune, and prophesied to him great 
wealth and honor, but not from the Queen of England; had coaxed him 
to the Mariners’ Rest, and gambled with him for liquor, at which it 
seemed Will always won, and of course drank his winnings on the 
spot; whereon the Egyptian began asking him all sorts of questions 
about the projected voyage of the Rose — a good many of which, Will 
confessed, he had answered before he saw the fellow’s drift; after 
which the Egyptian had offered him a vast sum of money to do some 
desperate villainy; but whether it was to murder Amyas, or the Queen, 
whether to bore a hole in the bottom of the good ship Rose 3 or to set 
the Torridge on fire by art-magic, he was too drunk to recollect ex- 
actly. Whereon Amyas treated three-quarters of the story as a tipsy 
dream, and contented himself by getting a warrant against the land- 


324 


Westward Ho ! 

lady for harboring “ Egyptians,” which was then a heavy offense — a 
gipsy disguise being a favorite one with Jesuits and their emissaries. 
She of course denied that any gipsy had been there; and though there 
were some who thought they had seen such a man come in, none had 
seen him go out again. On which Amyas took occasion to ask, what 
had become of the suspicious Popish ostler whom he had seen at the 
Mariners’ Rest three years before ; and discovered, to his surprise, that 
the said ostler had vanished from the very day of Don Guzman’s de- 
parture from Bideford. There was evidently a mystery somewhere: 
but nothing could be proved; the landlady was dismissed with a repri- 
mand, and Amyas soon forgot the whole matter, after rating Parra- 
combe soundly. After all, he could not have told the gipsy (if one 
existed) anything important; for the special destination of the voyage 
(as was the custom in those times, for fear of Jesuits playing into the 
hands of Spain) had been carefully kept secret among the adventurers 
themselves, and, except Yeo and Drew, none of the men had any sus- 
picion that La Guayra was to be their aim. 

And Salvation Yeo? 

Salvation was almost wild for a few days, at the sudden prospect of 
going in search of his little maid, and of fighting Spaniards once more 
before he died. I will not quote the texts out of Isaiah and the Psalms 
with which his mouth was filled from morning to night, for fear of 
seeming irreverent in the eyes of a generation which does not believe, 
as Yeo believed, that fighting the Spaniards was as really fighting in 
God’s battle against evil, as were the wars of Joshua or David. But 
the old man had his practical hint too, and entreated to be sent back to 
Plymouth to look for men. 

“ There’s many a man of the old Pelican , sir, and of Captain Haw- 
kins’ Minion , that knows the Indies as well as I, and longs to be back 
again. There’s Drew, sir, that we left behind (and no better sailing- 
master for us in the west country, and has accounts against the Span- 
iards, too; for it was his brother, the Barnstaple man, that was factor 
of poor Mr. Andrew Barker, and got clapt into the Inquisition at the 
Canaries) ; you promised him, sir, that night he stood by you on board 
the Raleigh; and if you’ll be as good as your word, he’ll be as good as 
his; and bring a score more brave fellows with him.” 

So off went Yeo to Plymouth, and returned with Drew and a score 
of old never-strikes. One look at their visages, as Yeo proudly ush- 
ered them into the Ship Tavern, showed Amyas that they were of the 
metal which he wanted, and that, with the four North-Devon men who 


The gpod ship - Rose" 8 « 

had gone round the world with him in the Pelican (who all joined in 
the first week), he had a reserve force on which he could depend in 
utter need; and that utter need might come he knew as well as any. 

Nor was this all which Yeo had brought; for he had with him a letter 
from Sir Francis Drake, full of regrets that he had not seen “ his dear 
lad ” as he went through Plymouth. “ But indeed I was up to Dart- 
moor, surveying with cross-staff and chain, over my knees in bog for a 
three weeks or more. For I have a project to bring down a leat of 
fair water from the hilltops right into Plymouth town, cutting off the 
heads of Tavy, Heavy, Wallcomb, and West Dart, and thereby purg- 
ing Plymouth harbor from the silt of the mines whereby it has been 
choked of late years, and giving pure drink not only to the townsmen, 
but to the fleets of the Queen's Majesty; which if I do, I shall both 
make some poor return to God for all His unspeakable mercies, and 
erect unto myself a monument better than of brass or marble, not 
merely honorable to me, but useful to my countrymen.” 1 Whereon 
Frank sent Drake a pretty epigram, comparing Drake’s projected leat 
to that river of eternal life whereof the just would drink throughout 
eternity, and quoting (after the fashion of those days) John vii. 38; 
while Amyas took more heed of a practical appendage to the same 
letter, which was a list of hints scrawled for his use by Captain John 
Hawkins himself, on all sea matters, from the mounting of ordnance 
to the use of vitriol against the scurvy, in default of oranges and 
“ limmons ”; all which stood Amyas in good stead during the ensuing 
month, while Frank grew more and more proud of his brother, and 
more and more humble about himself. 

For he watched with astonishment how the simple sailor, without 
genius, scholarship, or fancy, had gained, by plain honesty, patience, 
and common sense, a power over the human heart, and a power over 
his work, whatsoever it might be, which Frank could only admire afar 
off. The men looked up to him as infallible, prided themselves on 
forestalling his wishes, carried out his slightest hint, worked early and 
late to win a smile from him; while as for him, no detail escaped him, 
no drudgery sickened him, no disappointment angered him, till on the 
15th of November, 1583, dropped down from Bideford Quay to 
Appledore Pool the tall ship Rose , with a hundred men on board (for 
sailors packed close in those days), beef, pork, biscuit, and good ale 
(for ale went to sea always then) in abundance, four culverins on her 
main deck, her poop and forecastle well fitted with swivels of every 

1 This noble monument of Drake’s piety and public spirit still remains in full use. 


326 


Westward Ho ! 

size, and her racks so full of muskets, calivers, long bows, pikes and 
swords, that all agreed so well-appointed a ship had never sailed “ out 
over Bar.” 

The next day being Sunday, the whole crew received the Com- 
munion together at Northam Church, amid a mighty crowd; and then 
going on board again, hove anchor and sailed out over the Bar before 
a soft east wind, to the music of sackbut, fife, and drum, with discharge 
of all ordnance, great and small, with cheering of young and old from 
cliff and strand and quay, and with many a tearful prayer and blessing 
upon that gallant bark, and all brave hearts on board. 

And Mrs. Leigh, who had kissed her sons for the last time after the 
Communion at the altar-steps (and what more fit place for a mother’s 
kiss?) went to the rocky knoll outside the churchyard wall, and 
watched the ship glide out between the yellow denes, and lessen slowly 
hour by hour into the boundless west, till her hull sank below the dim 
horizon, and her white sails faded away into the gray Atlantic mist, 
perhaps forever. 

And Mrs. Leigh gathered her cloak about her, and bowed her head 
and worshiped; and then went home to loneliness and prayer. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

How Hiey ctMne to Barbados , and found 
no men therein , 

“The sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out; 

At one stride comes the dark. ’ ’ — Coleridge. 

Land! land! land! Yes, there it was, far away to the south and 
west, beside the setting sun, a long blue bar between the crimson sea, 
and golden sky. Land at last, with fresh streams, and cooling fruits, 
and free room for cramped and scurvy-weakened limbs. And there, 
too, might be gold, and gems, and all the wealth of Ind. Who knew? 
Why not? The old world of fact and prose lay thousands of miles 
behind them, and before them and around them was the realm of won- 
der and fable, of boundless hope and possibility. Sick men crawled 
up out of their stifling hammocks; strong men fell on their knees and 
gave God thanks; and all eyes and hands were stretched eagerly to- 
ward the far blue cloud, fading as the sun sank down, yet rising higher 
and broader as the ship rushed on before the rich trade-wind, which 
whispered lovingly round brow and sail, “ I am the faithful friend of 
those who dare!” “ Blow freshly, freshlier yet, thou good trade- 
wind, of whom it is written that He makes the winds His angels, min- 
istering breaths to the heirs of His salvation. Blow freshlier yet, and 
save, if not me from death, yet her from worse than death. Blow on, 
and land me at her feet, to call the lost lamb home, and die! ” 

So murmured Frank to himself, as with straining eyes he gazed 
upon that first outlier of the New World which held his all. His 
cheeks were thin and wasted, and the hectic spot on each glowed crim- 
son in the crimson light of the setting sun. A few minutes more, and 
the rainbows of the west were gone ; emerald and topaz, amethyst and 
ruby, had faded into silver-gray; and overhead, through the dark sap- 
phire depths, the Moon and Venus reigned above the sea. 

“ That should be Barbados, your worship,” said Drew, the master; 
“ unless my reckoning is far out, which, Heaven knows, it has no right 
to be, after such a passage, and God be praised.” 

“ Barbados? I never heard of it.” 


328 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Very like, sir: but Yeo and I were here with Captain Drake, and I 
was here after too with poor Captain Barlow; and there is good har- 
borage to the south and west of it, I remember; ” 

“And neither Spaniard, cannibal, or other evil beast,’’ said Yeo. 
“A very garden of the Lord, sir, hid away in the seas, for an inherit- 
ance to those who love Him. I heard Captain Drake talk of planting 
it, if ever he had a chance.” 

“ I recollect now,” said Amyas, “ some talk between him and poor 
Sir Humphrey about an island here. Would God he had gone thither 
instead of to Newfoundland! ” 

“ Nay, then,” said Yeo, “ he is in bliss now with the Lord; and you 
would not have kept him from that, sir? ” 

“ He would have waited as willingly as he went, if he could have 
served his Queen thereby. But what say you, my masters? How 
can we do better than to spend a few days here, to get our sick round, 
before we make the Main, and set to our work? ” 

All approved the counsel except Frank, who was silent. 

“ Come, fellow-adventurer,” said Cary, “ we must have your voice 
too.” 

“ To my impatience, Will,” said he, aside in a low voice, “ there is 
but one place on earth, and I am all day longing for wings to fly 
thither: but the counsel is right. I approve it.” 

So the verdict was announced, and received with a hearty cheer by 
the crew; and long before morning they had run along the southern 
shore of the island, and were feeling their way into the bay where 
Bridgetown now stands. All eyes were eagerly fixed on the low 
wooded hills which slept in the moonlight, spangled by fire-flies with a 
million dancing stars; all nostrils drank greedily the fragrant air, 
which swept from the land, laden with the scent of a thousand flowers; 
all ears welcomed, as a grateful change from the monotonous whisper 
and lap of the water, the hum of insects, the snore of the tree-toads, 
the plaintive notes of the shore-fowl, which fill a tropic night with noisy 
life. 

At last she stopped; at last the cable rattled through the hawsehole; 
and then, careless of the chance of lurking Spaniard or Carib, an in- 
stinctive cheer burst from every throat. Poor fellows! Amyas had 
much ado to prevent them going on shore at once, dark as it was, by 
reminding them that it wanted but two hours of day. 

“ Never were two such long hours,” said one young lad, fidgeting up 
and down. 


329 


To 

“ You never were in the Inquisition,” said Yeo, “ or you’d know 
better how slow time can run. Stand you still, and give God thanks 
you’re where you are.” 

“ I say. Gunner, be there goold to that island? ” 

“ Never heard of none; and so much the better for it,” said Yeo, 
drily. 

“ But, I say, Gunner,” said a poor scurvy-stricken cripple, licking 
his lips, “ be there oranges and limmons there? ” 

“ Not of my seeing; but plenty of good fruit down to the beach, 
thank the Lord. There comes the dawn at last.” 

Up flushed the rose, up rushed the sun, and the level rays glittered 
on the smooth stems of the palm-trees, and threw rainbows across the 
foam upon the coral-reefs, and gilded lonely uplands far away, where 
now stands many a stately country-seat and busy engine-house. Long 
lines of pelicans went clanging out to sea; the hum of the insects 
hushed, and a thousand birds burst into jubilant song; a thin blue mist 
crept upward toward the inner downs, and vanished, leaving them to 
quiver in the burning glare; the land-breeze, which had blown fresh out 
to sea all night, died away into glassy calm, and the tropic day was 
begun. 

The sick were lifted over the side, and landed boat-load after boat- 
load on the beach, to stretch themselves in the shade of the palms ; and 
in half an hour the whole crew were scattered on the shore, except some 
dozen worthy men, who had volunteered to keep watch and ward on 
board till noon. 

And now the first instinctive cry of nature was for fruit! fruit! fruit! 
The poor lame wretches crawled from place to place plucking greedily 
the violet grapes of the creeping shore vine, and staining their mouths 
and blistering their lips with the prickly pears, in spite of Yeo’s en- 
treaties and warnings against the thorns. Some of the healthy began 
hewing down cocoanut trees to get at the nuts, doing little thereby but 
blunt their hatchets; till Yeo and Drew, having mustered half a dozen 
reasonable men, went off inland, and returned in an hour laden with 
the dainties of that primaeval orchard,— with acid junipa-apples, 
luscious guavas, and crowned ananas, queen of all the fruits, which 
they had found by hundreds on the broiling ledges of the low tufa- 
cliffs; and then all, sitting on the sandy turf, defiant of galliwasps and 
jack-spaniards, and all the weapons of the insect host, partook of the 
equal banquet, while old blue land-crabs sat in their house-doors and 
brandished their fists in defiance at the invaders, and solemn cranes 


330 


Westward Ho ! 

stood in the water on the shoals with their heads on one side, and medi- 
tated how long it was since they had seen bipeds without feathers 
breaking the solitude of their isle. 

And Frank wandered up and down, silent, but rather in wonder 
than in sadness, while great Amyas walked after him, his mouth full of 
junipa-apples, and enacted the part of showman, with a sort of patron- 
izing air, as one who had seen the wonders already, and was above 
being astonished at them. 

“New, new; everything new!” said Frank, meditatively. “Oh, 
awful feeling! All things changed around us, even to the tiniest fly 
and flower; yet we the same; the same forever! ” 

Amyas, to whom such utterances were altogether sibylline and unin- 
telligible, answered by — 

“ Look, Frank, that’s a colibri. You’ve heard of colibris? ” 

Frank looked at the living gem, which hung, loud humming, over 
some fantastic bloom, and then dashed away, seemingly to call its 
mate, and whirred and danced with it round and round the flower- 
starred bushes, flashing fresh rainbows at every shifting of the lights. 

Frank watched solemnly a while, and then — 

“ Qualis Natura formatrix, si talis formata? Oh, my God, how fair 
must be Thy real world, if even Thy phantoms are so fair! ” 

“ Phantoms? ” asked Amyas, uneasily. “ That’s no ghost, Frank, 
but a jolly little honey-sucker, with a wee wife, and children no bigger 
than peas, but yet solid greedy little fellows enough, I’ll warrant.” 

“Not phantoms in thy sense, good fellow, but in the sense of those 
who know the worthlessness of all below.” 

“ I’ll tell you what, brother Frank, you are a great deal wiser than 
me, I know ; but I can’t abide to see you turn up your nose as it were 
at God’s good earth. See now, God made all these things; and never 
a man, perhaps, set eyes on them till fifty years agone; and yet they 
were as pretty as they are now, ever since the making of the world. 
And why do you think God could put them here, then, but to please 
Himself” — and Amyas took off his hat — “with the sight of them? 
Now, I say, brother Frank, what’s good enough to please God, is good 
enough to please you and me.” 

“Your rebuke is just, dear old simple-hearted fellow; and God 
forgive me, if with all my learning, which has brought me no profit, 
and my longings, which have brought me no peace, I presume at 
moments, sinner that I am, to be more dainty than the Lord Himself. 
He walked in Paradise among the trees of the garden, Amyas; and 


381 


To B&rb&dos 

so will we, and be content with what He sends. Why should we long 
for the next world, before we are fit even for this one? ” 

“And in the meanwhile,” said Amyas, “this earth’s quite good 
enough, at least here in Barbados.” 

“ Do you believe,” asked Frank, trying to turn his own thoughts, 
“ in those tales of the Spaniards, that the Sirens and Tritons are heard 
singing in these seas? ” 

“ I can’t tell. There’s more fish in the water than ever came out of it, 
and more wonders in the world, I’ll warrant, than we ever dreamt of ; 
but I was never in these parts before; and in the South Sea, I must 
say, I never came across any, though Yeo says he has heard fair 
music at night in the Gulf, far away from land.” 

“ The Spaniards report that at certain seasons choirs of these 
nymphs assemble in the sea, and with ravishing music sing their 
watery loves. It may be so. For Nature, which has peopled the land 
with rational souls, may not have left the sea altogether barren of 
them; above all, when we remember that the ocean is as it were the 
very fount of all fertility, and its slime (as the most learned hold with 
Thales of Miletus) that prima materia out of which all things were 
one by one concocted. Therefore, the ancients feigned wisely that 
Venus, the mother of all living things, whereby they designed the 
plastic force of nature, was born of the sea-foam, and rising from the 
deep, floated ashore upon the isles of Greece.” 

“ I don’t know what plastic force is; but I wish I had had the luck 
to be by when the pretty poppet came up : however, the nearest thing 
I ever saw to that was maidens swimming alongside of us when we 
were in the South Seas, and would have come aboard, too; but Drake 
sent them all off again for a lot of naughty packs, and I verily believe 
thejr were no better. Look at the butterflies, now! Don’t you wish 
you were a boy again, and not too proud to go catching them in your 
cap?” 

And so the two wandered on together through the glorious tropic 
woods, and then returned to the beach to find the sick already grown 
cheerful, and many who that morning could not stir from their ham- 
mocks, pacing up and down, and gaining strength with every step. 

“Well done, lads!” cried Amyas, “keep a cheerful mind. We 
will have the music ashore after dinner, for want of mermaids to 
sing to us, and those that can dance may.” 

And so those four days were spent; and the men, like schoolboys on 
a holiday, gave themselves up to simple merriment, not forgetting, 


332 


Westward Ho ! 

however, to wash the clothes, take in fresh water, and store up a good 
supply of such fruit as seemed likely to keep ; until, tired with fruit- 
less rambles after gold, which they expected to find in every bush, in 
spite of Yeo’s warnings that none had been heard of on the island, 
they were fain to lounge about, full-grown babies, picking up shells 
and sea-fans to take home to their sweethearts, smoking agoutis out 
of the hollow trees, with shout and laughter, and tormenting every 
living thing they could come near, till not a land-crab dare look out of 
his hole, or an armadillo unroll himself, till they were safe out of the 
bay, and off again to the westward, unconscious pioneers of all the 
wealth, and commerce, and beauty, and science, which has in later cen- 
turies made that lovely isle the richest gem of all the tropic seas. 




CHAPTER XVIII. 

How Hie^took Ihe pearls at Margarita . 

P. Henry . Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running! 

FaZstaff. 0’ horseback, ye cuckoo! but a-foot, he will not budge a foot. 

P. Henry. Yes, Jack, upon instinct. 

FaZstaff. I grant ye, upon instinct. 

Henry IV. Pt. I. 

They had slipped past the southern point of Grenada in the night, 
and were at last within that fairy ring of islands, on which nature had 
concentrated all her beauty, and man all his sin. If Barbados had 
been invested in the eyes of the newcomers with some strange glory, 
how much more the seas on which they now entered, which smile in 
almost perpetual calm, untouched by the hurricane which roars past 
them far to northward! Sky, sea, and islands were one vast rainbow; 
though little marked, perhaps, by those sturdy practical sailors, whose 
main thought was of Spanish gold and pearls; and as little by Amyas, 
who, accustomed to the scenery of the tropics, was speculating in- 
wardly on the possibility of extirpating the Spaniards, and annexing 
the West Indies to the domains of Queen Elizabeth. And yet even 
their unpoetic eyes could not behold without awe and excitement lands 
so famous and yet so new, around which all the wonder, all the pity, 
and all the greed of the age had concentrated itself. It was an awful 
thought, and yet inspiriting, that they were entering regions all but 
unknown to Englishmen, where the penalty of failure would be worse 
than death — the torments of the Inquisition. Not more than five 
times before, perhaps, had those mysterious seas been visited by Eng- 
lish keels ; but there were those on board who knew them well, and too 
well ; who, first of all British mariners, had attempted under Captain 
John Hawkins to trade along those very coasts, and, interdicted from 
the necessaries of life by Spanish jealousy, had, in true English fash- 
ion, won their markets at the sword’s point, and then bought and sold 
honestly and peaceably therein. The old mariners of the Pelican and 
the Minion were questioned all day long for the names of every isle and 


334 Westward Ho I 

cape, every fish and bird; while Frank stood by, listening serious and 
silent. 

A great awe seemed to have possessed his soul: yet not a sad one: 
for his face seemed daily to drink in glory from the glory round him ; 
and murmuring to himself at whiles, “ This is the gate of heaven,” he 
stood watching all day long, careless of food and rest, as every forward 
plunge of the ship displayed some fresh wonder. Islands and capes 
hung high in air, with their inverted images below them; long sand- 
hills rolled and weltered in the mirage; and the yellow flower-beds, and 
huge thorny cacti like giant candelabra, which clothed the glaring 
slopes, twisted, tossed, and flickered, till the whole scene seemed one 
blazing phantom-world, in which everything was as unstable as it was 
fantastic, even to the sun itself, distorted into strange oval and pear- 
shaped figures by the beds of crimson mist through which he sank to 
rest. But while Frank wondered, Yeo rejoiced; for to the southward 
of that setting sun a cluster of tall peaks rose from the sea; and they, 
unless his reckonings were wrong, were the mountains of Macanao, at 
the western end of Margarita the Isle of Pearls, then famous in all the 
cities of the Mediterranean, and at the great German fairs, and second 
only in richness to that pearl island in the gulf of Panama, which fif- 
teen years before had cost John Oxenham his life. 

The next day saw them running along the north side of the island, 
having passed undiscovered (as far as they could see) the castle which 
the Spaniards had built at the eastern end for the protection of the 
pearl fisheries. 

At last they opened a deep and still bight, wooded to the water’s 
edge; and lying in the roadstead a caravel, and three boats by her. 
And at that sight there was not a man but was on deck at once, and 
not a mouth but was giving its opinion of what should be done. Some 
were for sailing right into the roadstead, the breeze blowing fresh 
toward the shore (as it usually does throughout those islands in the 
afternoon). However, seeing the billows break here and there off 
the bay’s mouth, they thought it better, for fear of rocks, to run by 
quietly, and then send in the pinnace and the boat. Yeo would have 
had them show Spanish colors, for fear of alarming the caravel; but 
Amyas stoutly refused, “ counting it,” he said, “ a mean thing to tell 
a lie in that way, unless in extreme danger, or for great ends of state.” 

So holding on their course till they were shut out by the next point, 
they started; Cary in the largest boat with twenty men, and Amyas 
in the smaller one with fifteen more; among whom was John Brimble- 


335 


At Margarita 

combe, who must needs come in his cassock and bands, with an old 
sword of his uncle’s which he prized mightily. 

When they came to the bight’s mouth, they found, as they had 
expected, coral rocks, and too many of them; so that they had to run 
along the edge of the reef a long way, before they could find a passage 
for the boats. While they were so doing, and those of them who were 
new to the Indies were admiring through the clear element those living 
flower-beds, and subaqueous gardens of Nereus and Amphitrite, there 
suddenly appeared below what Yeo called “A school of sharks,” some 
of them nearly as long as the boat, who looked up at them wistfully 
enough out of their wicked scowling eyes. 

“Jack,” said Amyas, who sat next to him, “ look how that big fellow 
eyes thee: he has surely taken a fancy to that plump hide of thine, and 
thinks thou wouldst eat as tender as any sucking porker.” 

J ack turned very pale, but said nothing. 

Now, as it befell, just then that very big fellow, seeing a parrot-fish 
come out of a cleft of the coral, made at him from below, as did two or 
three more; the poor fish finding no other escape, leaped clean into 
the air, and almost aboard the boat; while just where he had come out 
of the water, three or four great brown shagreened noses clashed to- 
gether within two yards of Jack as he sat, each showing its horrible 
rows of saw teeth, and then sank sulkily down again, to watch for a 
fresh bait. At which Jack said very softly, “ In manus tuas, 
Domine! ” and turning his eyes inboard, had no lust to look at sharks 
any more. 

So having got through the reef, in they ran with a fair breeze, the 
caravel not being now a musket-shot off. Cary laid her aboard before 
the Spaniards had time to get to their ordnance; and standing up in 
the stern-sheets, shouted to them to yield. The captain asked boldly 
enough, in whose name? “ In the name of common sense, ye dogs,” 
cries Will; “do you not see that you are but fifty strong to our 
twenty? ” Whereon up the side he scrambled, and the captain fired 
a pistol at him. Cary knocked him over, unwilling to shed needless 
blood; on which all the crew yielded, some falling on their knees, some 
leaping overboard ; and the prize was taken. 

In the meanwhile, Amyas had pulled round under her stern, and 
boarded the boat which was second from her, for the nearest was fast 
alongside, and so a sure prize. The Spaniards in her yielded without 
a blow, crying “ Misericordia ” ; and the negroes, leaping overboard, 
swam ashore like sea-dogs. Meanwhile, the third boat, which was not 


336 


Westward Ho ! 

an oar’s length off, turned to pull away. Whereby befell a notable 
adventure: for John Brimblecombe, casting about in a valiant mind 
how he should distinguish himself that day, must needs catch up a 
boat-hook, and claAv on to her stern, shouting “Stay, ye Papists! 
Stay, Spanish dogs ! ” — by which, as was to be expected, they being 
ten to his one, he was forthwith pulled overboard, and fell all along on 
his nose in the sea, leaving the hook fast in her stern. 

Where, I know not how, being seized with some })anic fear (his 
lively imagination filling all the sea with those sharks which he had 
just seen), he fell a-roaring like any town-bull, and in his confusion 
never thought to turn and get aboard again, but struck out lustily after 
the Spanish boat, whether in hope of catching hold of the boat-hook 
which trailed behind her, or from a very madness of valor, no man 
could divine; but on he swam, his eassock afloat behind him, looking 
for all the world like a great black monk-fish, and howling and puffing, 
with his mouth full of salt water, “ Stay, ye Spanish dogs! Help, all 
good fellows ! See you not that I am a dead man? They are nuzzling 
already at my toes! He hath hold of my leg! My right thigh is 
bitten clean off! Oh! that I were preaching in Hartland pulpit! 
Stay, Spanish dogs! Yield, Papist cowards, least I make mincemeat 
of you; and take me aboard! Yield, I say, or my blood be on your 
heads! I am no Jonah; if he swallow me, he will never cast me up 
again! It is better to fall into the hands of man, than into the hands 
of devils with three rows of teeth apiece. In manns tuas. Orate 
pro animti / " 

And so forth, in more frantic case than ever was Panurge in that his 
ever-memorable sea-sickness; till the English, expecting him every 
minute to be snapped up by sharks, or brained by the Spaniard’s oars, 
let fly a volley into the fugitives, on which they all leaped overboard 
like their fellows; whereon Jack scrambled into the boat, and drawing 
sword with one hand, while he wiped the water out of his eyes with the 
other, began to lay about him like a very lion, cutting the empty air, 
and crying, “Yield, idolaters! Yield, Spanish dogs!” However, 
coming to himself after a while, and seeing that there was no one on 
whom to flesh his maiden steel, he sits down panting in the stern-sheets, 
and begins stripping off his hose. On which Amyas, thinking surely 
that the good fellow had gone mad with some stroke of the sun, or by 
having fallen into the sea after being overheated with his rowing, bade 
pull alongside, and asked him in heaven’s name what he was doing with 
his nether tackle. On which J ack, amid such laughter as may be con- 


337 


At Margarita 

ceived, vowed and swore that his right thigh was bitten clean through, 
and to the bone; yea, and that he felt his hose full of blood; and so 
would have swooned away for imaginary loss of blood (so strong was 
the delusion on him) had not his friends, after much arguing on their 
part, and anger on his, persuaded him that he was whole and sound. 

After which they set to work to overhaul their maiden prize, which 
they found full of hides and salt-pork ; and yet not of that alone ; for 
in the captain’s cabin, and also in the stern-sheets of the boat which 
Brimblecombe had so valorously boarded, were certain frails of leaves 
packed neatly enough, which being opened were full of goodly pearls, 
though somewhat brown (for the Spaniards used to damage the color 
in their haste and greediness, opening the shells by fire, instead of leav- 
ing them to decay gradually after the Arabian fashion) ; with which 
prize, though they could not guess its value very exactly, they went off 
content enough, after some malicious fellow had set the ship on fire, 
which, being laden with hides, was no nosegay as it burned. 

Amyas was very angry at this wanton damage, in which his model, 
Drake, had never indulged; but Cary had his jest ready. “Ah! ” said 
he, “ ‘ Lutheran devils ’ we are, you know; so we are bound to vanish, 
like other fiends, with an evil savor.” 

As soon, however, as Amyas was on board again, he rounded his 
friend Mr. Brimblecombe in the ear, and told him he had better play 
the man a little more, roaring less before he was hurt, and keeping his 
breath to help his strokes, if he wished the crew to listen much to his 
discourses. Frank, hearing this, bade Amyas leave the offender to 
him, and so began upon him with — 

“ Come hither, thou recreant Jack, thou lily-livered Jack, thou hys- 
terical Jack. Tell me now, thou hast read Plato’s Dialogues, and 
Aristotle’s Logic? ” 

To which Jack very meekly answered, “ Yes.” 

“ Then I will deal with thee after the manner of those ancient sages, 
and ask whether the greater must not contain the less? ” 

Jack . — Yes, sure. 

Frank —And that which is more than a part, contain that part, 
more than which it is? 

Jack. — Yes, sure. 

Frank . — Then tell me, is not a priest more than a layman? 

Jack (who was always very loud about the dignity of the priesthood, 
as many of his cloth are, who have no other dignity whereon to 
stand) answered very boldly Of course. 


338 


Westward Ho i 

Frank . — Then a priest containeth a man, and is a man, and some- 
thing over — viz. his priesthood? 

Jack (who saw whither this would lead) . — I suppose so. 

Frank. — Then, if a priest show himself no man, he shows himself all 
the more no priest? 

“ I’ll tell you what, Master Frank,” says Jack, “ you may be right 
by logic; but sharks aren’t logic, nor don’t understand it neither.” 

Frank . — Nay but, my recalcitrant Jack, my stiff-necked Jack, is it 
the part of a man to howl like a pig in a gate, because he thinks that is 
there which is not there? 

J ack had not a word to say. 

Frank . — And still more, when if that had been there, it had been 
the duty of a brave man to have kept his mouth shut, if only to keep 
salt water out, and not add the evil of choking to that of being eaten? 

“Ah! ” says Jack, “ that’s all very fine; but you know as well as I, 
that it was not the Spaniards I was afraid of. They were heaven’s 
handiwork, and I knew how to deal with them ; but as for those fiends’ 
spawn of sharks, when I saw that fellow take the fish alongside, it 
upset me clean, and there’s an end of it ! ” 

Frank. — Oh, Jack, Jack, behold how one sin begets another! Just 
now thou wert but a coward, and now thou art a Manichee. For thou 
hast imputed to an evil creator that which was formed only for a good 
end, namely, sharks, which were made on purpose to devour useless 
carcasses like thine. Moreover, as a brother of the Rose, thou wert 
bound by the vow of thy brotherhood to have leaped joyfully down 
that shark’s mouth. 

Jack. — Ay, very likely, if Mistress Rose had been in his stomach; 
but I wanted to fight Spaniards just then, not to be shark-bitten. 

Frank. — Jack, thy answer savors of self-will. If it is ordained 
that thou shouldst advance the ends of the brotherhood by being shark- 
bitten, or flea-bitten, or bitten by sharpers, to the detriment of thy 
carnal wealth, or, shortly, to suffer any shame or torment whatsoever, 
even to strappado and scarp ines, thou art bound to obey thy destiny, 
and not, after that vain Roman conceit, to choose the manner of thine 
own death, which is indeed only another sort of self-murder. We 
therefore consider thee as a cause of scandal, and a rotten and creaking 
branch, to be excised by the spiritual arm, and do hereby excise thee, 
and cut thee off. 

Jack. — Nay faith, that’s a little too much. Master Frank. How 
long have you been Bishop of Exeter? 


At Margarita 


339 


Frank. — J ack, thy wit being blinded, and full of gross vapors, by 
reason of the perturbations of fear (which, like anger, is a short mad- 
ness, and raises in the phantasy vain spectres,— videlicet, of sharks 
and Spaniards), mistakes our lucidity. For thy Manicheeism, let his 
lordship of Exeter deal with it. For thy abominable howling and 
caterwauling, offensive in a chained cur, but scandalous in a preacher 
and a brother of the Rose, we do hereby deprive thee of thine office of 
chaplain to the brotherhood; and warn thee, that unless within seven 
days thou do some deed equal to the Seven Champions, or Ruggiero 
and Orlando’s self, thou shalt be deprived of sword and dagger, and 
allowed henceforth to carry no more iron about thee than will serve to 
mend thy pen. 

“And now, Jack,” said Amyas, “ I will give thee a piece of news. 
No wonder that young men, as the parsons complain so loudly, will not 
listen to the Gospel, while it is preached to them by men on whom they 
cannot but look down ; a set of soft-handed fellows who cannot dig, 
and are ashamed to beg; and, as my brother has it, must needs be 
parsons before they are men.” 

Frank. — Ay, and even though we may excuse that in popish priests 
and friars, who are vowed not to be men, and get their bread shame- 
fully and rascally by telling sinners who owe a hundred measures to 
sit down quickly and take their bill and write fifty: yet for a priest of 
the Church of England (whose business is not merely to smuggle sin- 
ful souls up the backstairs into heaven, but to make men good Chris- 
tians by making them good men, good gentlemen, and good English- 
men) to show the white feather in the hour of need, is to unpreach in 
one minute all that he had been preaching his life long. 

“ I tell thee,” says Amyas, “ if I had not taken thee for another 
guess sort of man, I had never let thee have the care of a hundred 

brave lads’ immortal souls ” . , . , 

And so on, both of them boarding him at once with their heavy shot, 
larboard and starboard, till he fairly clapped his hands to his ears and 
ran for it, leaving poor Frank laughing so heartily, that Amyas was 
after all glad the thing had happened, for the sake of the smile which 
it put into his sad and steadfast countenance. . . 

The next day was Sunday; on which, after divine service (whie 
they could hardly persuade Jack to read, so shamefaced was he; and as 
for preaching after it, he would not hear of such a thing) , Amyas lead 
aloud according to custom, the articles of their agreement; and then 
seeing abreast of them a sloping beach with a shoot of clear water lun- 


840 


Westward Ho I 

ning into the sea, agreed that they should land there, wash the clothes, 
and again water the ship ; for they had found water somewhat scarce 
at Barbados. On this party Jack Brimblecombe must needs go, tak- 
ing with him his sword and a great arquebuse; for he had dreamed last 
night (he said) that he was set upon by Spaniards, and was sure that 
the dream would come true; and moreover, that he did not very much 
care if they did, or if he ever got back alive; “ for it was better to die 
than be made an ape, and a scarecrow, and laughed at by the men, and 
badgered with Ramus his logic, and Plato his dialectical devilries, to 
confess himself a Manichee, and, for aught he knew, a turbaned Turk, 
or Hebrew Jew,” and so flung into the boat like a man desperate. 

So they went ashore, after Amyas had given strict commands 
against letting off firearms, for fear of alarming the Spaniards. There 
they washed their clothes, and stretched their legs with great joy, ad- 
miring the beauty of the place, and then began to shoot the seine which 
they had brought on shore with them. “ In which,” says the chron- 
icler, “ we caught many strange fishes, and beside them, a sea-cow full 
seven feet long, with limpets and barnacles on her back, as if she had 
been a stick of drift-timber. This is a fond and foolish beast: and yet 
pious withal; for finding a corpse, she watches over it day and night 
until it decay or be buried. The Indians call her manati ; who carries 
her young under her arm, and gives it suck like a woman ; and being 
wounded, she lamenteth aloud with a human voice, and is said at cer- 
tain seasons to sing very melodiously; which melody, perhaps, having 
been heard in those seas, is that which Mr. Frank reported to be the 
choirs of the Sirens and Tritons. The which I do not avouch for 
truth, neither rashly deny, having seen myself such fertility of Na- 
ture’s wonders that I hold him who denieth ought merely for its 
strangeness, to be a ribald and an ignoramus. Also one of our men 
brought in two great black fowls which he had shot with a cross-bow, 
bodied and headed like a capon, but bigger than any eagle, which the 
Spaniards call curassos ; which, with that sea-cow, afterward made us 
good cheer, both roast and sodden, for the cow was very dainty meat, 
as good as a four-months’ calf, and tender and fat withal.” 

After that they set to work filling the casks and barricos, having laid 
the boat up to the outflow of the rivulet. And lucky for them it was, 
as it fell out, that they were all close together at that work, and not 
abroad skylarking as they had been half an hour before. 

Now John Brimblecombe had gone apart as soon as they landed, 
with a shamefaced and doleful countenance; and sitting down under a 


841 


At JVtargarita 

great tree, plucked a Bible from his bosom, and read steadfastly, girded 
with his great sword, and his arquebuse lying by him. This too was 
well for him, and for the rest ; for they had not yet finished their water- 
ing, when there was a cry that the enemy was on them; and out of the 
wood, not twenty yards from the good parson, came full fifty shot, 
with a multitude of negroes behind them, and an officer in front on 
horseback, with a great plume of feathers in his hat, and his sword 
drawn in his hand. 

“ Stand, for your lives!” shouted Amyas: and only just in time; 
for there was ten good minutes lost in running up and down before he 
could get his men into some order of battle. But when Jack beheld 
the Spaniards, as if he had expected their coming, he plucked a leaf 
and put it into the page of his book for a mark, laid the book down 
soberly, caught up his arquebuse, ran like a mad dog right at the Span- 
ish captain, shot him through the body stark dead, and then, flinging 
the arquebuse at the head of him who stood next, fell on with his sword 
like a very Colbrand, breaking in among the arquebuses, and striking 
right and left such ugly strokes, that the Spaniards (who thought him 
a very fiend, or Luther’s self come to life to plague them) gave back 
pell-mell, and shot at him five or six at once with their arquebuses: but 
whether from fear of him, or of wounding each other, made so bad play 
with their pieces, that he only got one shrewd ball in his thigh, which 
made him limp for many a day. But as fast as they gave back he came 
on; and the rest by this time ran up in good order, and altogether 
nearly forty men well armed. On which the Spaniards turned, and 
went as fast as they had come, while Cary hinted that, “ The dogs 
had had such a taste of the parson, that they had no mind to wait for the 
clerk and people.” 

“ Come back, Jack! are you mad? ” shouted Amyas. 

But Jack (who had not all this time spoken one word) followed 
them as fiercely as ever, till, reaching a great blow at one of the 
arquebusiers, he caught his foot in a root. On which down he went, 
and striking his head against the ground, knocked out of himself all 
the breath he had left (which between fatness and fighting was not 
much) , and so lay. Amyas, seeing the Spaniards gone, did not care 
to pursue them: but picked up Jack, who, staring about, ciied, Grloiv 
be ! glory be !— How many have I killed? How many have I killed ? ” 

“ Nineteen, at the least,” quoth Cary, “ and seven with one back 
stroke; ” and then showed Brimblecombe the captain lying dead, and 
two arquebusiers, one of which was the fugitive by whom he came to 


342 


Westward Ho I 

his fall, beside three or four more who were limping away wounded, 
some of them by their fellows’ shot. 

“ There! ” said Jack, pausing and blowing, “ will you laugh at me 
any more, Mr. Cary ; or say that I cannot fight, because I am a poor 
parson’s son? ” 

Cary took him by the hand, and asked pardon of him for his scoffing, 
saying that he had that day played the best man of all of them ; and 
Jack, who never bore malice, began laughing in his turn, and — 

“ Oh, Mr. Cary, we have all known your pleasant ways, ever since 
you used to put drumble-drones into my desk to Bideford school.” 
And so they went to the boats, and pulled off, thanking God (as they 
had need to do) for their great deliverance; while all the boats’ crew 
rejoiced over Jack, who after a while grew very faint (having bled a 
good deal without knowing it) , and made as little of his real wound as 
he made much the day before of his imaginary one. 

Frank asked him that evening how he came to show so cool and 
approved a valor in so sudden a mishap. 

“ Well, my masters,” said Jack, “ I don’t deny that I was very 
downcast on account of what you said, and the scandal which I had 
given to the crew; but as it happened, I was reading there under the 
tree, to fortify my spirits, the history' of the ancient worthies, in St. 
Paul his eleventh chapter to the Hebrews; and just as I came to that, 

‘ out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to 
flight the armies of the aliens,’ arose the cry of the Spaniards. At 
which, gentlemen, thinking in myself that I fought in just so good a 
cause as they, and, as I hope, with like faith, there came upon me so 
strange an assurance of victory, that I verily believed in myself that 
if there had been a ten thousand of them, I should have taken no hurt. 
Wherefore,” said Jack modestly, “ there is no credit due to me, for 
there was no valor in me whatsoever, but only a certainty of safety; 
and any coward would fight, if he knew that he were to have all the 
killing, and none of the scratches.” 

Which words he next day, being Sunday, repeated in his sermon 
which he made on that chapter, with which all, even Salvation Yeo 
himself, were well content and edified, and allowed him to be as godly 
a preacher as he was (in spite of his simple ways) a valiant and true- 
hearted comrade. 

They brought away the Spanish officer’s sword (a very good blade) , 
and also a great chain of gold which he wore about his neck ; both of 
which were allotted to Brimblecombe as his fair prize; but he, accept- 


At Margarita 343 

ing the sword, steadfastly refused the chain, entreating Amyas to put 
it into the common stock; and when Amyas refused, he cut it into 
links and distributed it among those of the boat’s crew who had suc- 
cored him, winning thereby much good-will. “And indeed ” ( says the 
chronicler), “ I never saw in that worthy man, from the first day of 
our school-fellowship till he was laid in his parish church of Hartland 
(where he now sleeps in peace), any touch of that sin of covetousness 
which has in all ages, and in ours no less than others, beset especially 
(I know not why) them who minister about the sanctuary. But this 
man, though he was ugly and lowly in person, and in understanding 
simple, and of breeding but a poor parson’s son, had yet in him a spirit 
so loving and cheerful, so lifted from base and selfish purposes to the 
worship of duty, and to a generosity rather knightly than sacerdotal, 
that all through his life he seemed to think only that it was more 
blessed to give than to receive. And all that wealth which he gained 
in the wars, he dispersed among his sisters and the poor of his parish, 
living unmarried till his death like a true lover and constant mourner 
(as shall be said in place), and leaving hardly wherewith to bring his 
body to the grave. At whom if we often laughed once, we should now 
rather envy him, desiring to be here what he was, that we may be here- 
after where he is. Amen.” 



CHAPTER XIX. 

What befell at La Guayraw, 

“Great was the crying, the running and riding, 

Which at that season was made in the place ; 

The beacons were fired, as need then required, 

To save their great treasure they had little space. ’ ’ 

Winning of Cales. 

The men would gladly have hawked a while round Margarita and 
Cubagua for another pearl prize. But Amyas, having as he phrased 
it, “ fleshed his dogs/’ was loath to hang about the islands after the 
alarm had been given. They ran, therefore, southwest across the 
mouth of that great bay, which stretches from the Peninsula of Paria 
to Cape Codera, leaving on their right hand Tortuga, and on their left 
the meadow-islands of the Piritoos, two long green lines but a few 
inches above the tideless sea. Yeo and Drew knew every foot of the 
way, and had good reason to know it; for they, the first of all English 
mariners, had tried to trade along this coast with Hawkins. And 
now, right ahead, sheer out of the sea from base to peak, arose higher 
and higher the mighty range of the Caraccas mountains ; beside which 
all hills which most of the crew had ever seen seemed petty mounds. 
Frank, of course, knew the Alps; and Amyas the Andes; but Cary’s 
notions of height were bounded by M’Gillicuddy’s Reeks, and Brim- 
blecombe’s by Exmoor; and the latter, to Cary’s infinite amusement, 
spent a whole day holding on by the rigging, and staring upward with 
his chin higher than his nose, till he got a stiff neck. Soon the sea be- 
came rough and chopping, though the breeze was fair and gentle; and 
ere they were abreast of the Cape, they became aware of that strong 
eastward current, which, during the winter months, so often baffles the 
mariner who wishes to go to the westward. All night long they 
struggled through the billows, with the huge wall of Cape Codera a 
thousand feet above their heads to the left, and beyond it again, bank 
upon bank of mountain, bathed in the yellow moonlight. 

Morning showed them a large ship, which had passed them during 


-A* G 345 

the night upon the opposite course, and was now a good ten miles to 
the eastward. Yeo was for going back and taking her. Of the latter 
he made a matter of course ; and the former was easy enough, for the 
breeze blowing dead off the land, was a “ soldier’s wind, there and back 
again,” for either ship; but Amyas and Frank were both unwilling. 

“ Why, Yeo, you said that one day more would bring us to La 
Guayra.” 

“All the more reason, sir, for doing the Lord’s work thoroughly, 
when He has brought us safely so far on our journey.” 

“ She can pass well enough, and no loss.” 

“Ah sirs, sirs, she is delivered into your hands, and you will have to 
give an account of her.” 

“ My good Yeo,” said Frank, “ I trust we shall give good account 
enough of many a tall Spaniard before we return: but you know surely 
that La Guayra and the salvation of one whom we believe dwells there, 
was our first object in this adventure.” 

Yeo shook his head sadly. “Ah, sirs, a lady brought Captain Oxen- 
ham to ruin.” 

“ You do not dare to compare her with this one? ” said Frank and 
Cary, both in a breath. 

“ God forbid, gentlemen: but no adventure will prosper, unless 
there is a single eye to the Lord’s work; and that is, as I take it, to 
cripple the Spaniard, and exalt her Majesty the Queen. And I had 
thought that nothing was more dear than that to Captain Leigh’s 
heart.” 

Amyas stood somewhat irresolute. His duty to the Queen bade 
him follow the Spanish vessel: his duty to his vow, to go on to La 
Guayra. It may seem a far-fetched dilemma. He found it a prac- 
tical one enough. 

However, the counsel of Frank prevailed, and on to La Guayra he 
went. He half hoped that the Spaniard would see and attack them. 
However, he went on his way to the eastward; which if he had not 
done, my story had had a very different ending. 

About midday a canoe, the first which they had seen, came stagger- 
ing toward them under a huge three-cornered sail. As it came near, 
they could see two Indians on board. 

“ Metal floats in these seas, you see,” quoth Cary. “ There’s a fresh 
marvel for you, Frank.” 

“ Expound,” quoth Frank, who was really ready to swallow any 
fresh marvel, so many had he seen already. 


346 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Why, how else would those two bronze statues dare to go to sea in 
such a cockleshell, eh? Have I given you the dor now, master 
courtier? ” 

“ I am long past dors, Will. But what noble creatures they are ! and 
how fearlessly they are coming alongside! Can they know that we 
are English, and the avengers of the Indians? ” 

“ I suspect they just take us for Spaniards, and want to sell their 
cocoanuts. See, the canoe is laden with vegetables.” 

“ Hail them, Yeo! ” said Amyas. “ You talk the best Spanish, and 
I want speech of one of them.” 

Yeo did so; the canoe, without more ado, ran alongside, and lowered 
her felucca sail, while a splendid Indian scrambled on board like a cat. 

He was full six feet high, and as bold and graceful of bearing as 
Frank or Amyas’s self. He looked round for the first moment smil- 
ingly, showing his white teeth ; but the next, his countenance changed ; 
and springing to the side, he shouted to his comrade in Spanish, — 

“ Treachery! No Spaniard!” and would have leaped overboard, 
but a dozen strong fellows caught him ere he could do so. 

It required some trouble to master him, so strong was he, and so 
slippery his naked limbs; Amyas, meanwhile, alternately entreated 
the men not to hurt the Indian, and the Indian to be quiet, and no 
harm should happen to him; and so, after five minutes’ confusion, the 
stranger gave in sulkily. 

“ Don’t bind him ! Let him loose, and make a ring round him. 
Now, my man, there’s a dollar for you.” 

The Indian’s eyes glistened, and he took the coin. 

“All I want of you is, first, to tell me what ships are in La Guayra, 
and next, to go thither on board of me, and show me which is the gov- 
ernor’s house, and which the custom-house.” 

The Indian laid the coin down on the deck, and crossing himself, 
looked Amyas in the face. 

“No, Senor! I am a freeman and a cavalier, a Christian Guay- 
queria, whose forefathers, first of all the Indians swore fealty to the 
King of Spain, and whom he calls to this day in all his proclamations 
his most faithful, loyal, and noble Guayquerias. God forbid, there- 
fore, that I should tell aught to his enemies, who are my enemies like- 
wise.” 

A growl arose from those of the men who understood him; and more 
than one hinted that a cord twined round the head, or a match put be- 
tween the fingers, would speedily extract the required information. 


«A.fc Gu&yr& 

347 

“ God forbid! ” said Amyas, “ a brave and loyal man he is, and as 
such will I treat him. Tell me, my brave fellow, how do you know us 
to be his Catholic Majesty’s enemies? ” 

The Indian, with a shrewd smile, pointed to half a dozen different 
objects, saying to each, “ Not Spanish.” 

“ Well, and what of that? ” 

“ None but Spaniards and free Guayquerias have a right to sail 
these seas.” 

Amyas laughed. 

“ Thou art a right valiant bit of copper. Pick up thy dollar, and 
go thy way in peace. Make room for him, men. We can learn what 
we want without his help.” 

The Indian paused, incredulous and astonished. 

“ Overboard with you! ” quoth Amyas. “ Don’t you know when 
you are well off ? ” 

“ Most illustrious Senor,” began the Indian, in the drawling sentem 
tious fashion of his race (when they take the trouble to talk at all) , “ I 
have been deceived. I heard that you heretics roasted and ate all true 
Catholics (as we Guayquerias are) , and that all your padres had tails.” 

“ Plague on you, sirrah! ” squeaked Jack Brimblecombe. “ Have 
I a tail? Look here! ” 

“ Quien sabe? Who knows? ” quoth the Indian through his nose. 

“ How do you know we are heretics? ” said Amyas. 

44 Humph! But in repayment for your kindness, I would warn 
you, illustrious Senor, not to go on to La Guayra. There are ships of 
war there waiting for you; and moreover, the governor Don Guzman 
sailed to the eastward only yesterday to look for you; and I wonder 
much that you did not meet him.” 

“ To look for us ! On the watch for us ! ” said Cary. 44 Impossible; 
lies ! Amyas, this is some trick of the rascal’s to frighten us away,” 

44 Don Guzman came out but yesterday to look for us? Are you 
sure you spoke truth? ” 

“As I live, Senor, he and another ship, for which I took yours.” 

Amyas stamped upon the deck: that then was the ship which they 
had passed! 

44 Fool that I was to have been close to my enemy, and let my oppor- 
tunity slip! If I had but done my duty, all would have gone right! ” 

But it was too late to repine; and after all, the Indian’s story was 
likely enough to be false. 

44 Off with you! ” said he; and the Indian bounded over the side into 


348 


Westward Ho ! 

his canoe, leaving the whole crew wondering at the stateliness and 
courtesy of this bold sea-cavalier. 

So Westward-ho they ran, beneath the mighty northern wall, the 
highest cliff on earth, some seven thousand feet of rock parted from the 
sea by a narrow strip of bright green lowland. Here and there a 
patch of sugar-cane, or a knot of cocoanut trees, close to the water’s 
edge, reminded them that they were in the tropics ; but above, all was 
savage, rough, and bare as an Alpine precipice. Sometimes deep 
clefts allowed the southern sun to pour a blaze of light down to the 
sea marge, and gave glimpses far above of strange and stately trees 
lining the glens, and of a veil of perpetual mist which shrouded the 
inner summits; while up and down, between them and the mountain 
side, white fleecy clouds hung motionless in the burning air, increasing 
the impression of vastness and of solemn rest, which was already over- 
powering. 

“ Within those mountains, three thousand feet above our heads,” 
said Drew, the master, “ lies Saint Yago de Leon, the great city which 
the Spaniards founded fifteen years agone.” 

“ Is it a rich place? ” asked Cary. 

“ Very, they say.” 

“ Is it a strong place? ” asked Amyas. 

“ No forts to it at all, they say. The Spaniards boast, that Heaven 
has made such good walls to it already, that man need make none.” 

“ I don’t know,” quoth Amyas. “ Lads, could you climb those hills, 
do you think? ” 

“ Rather higher than Harty Point, sir: but it depends pretty much 
on what’s behind them.” 

And now the last point is rounded, and they are full in sight of the 
spot in quest of which they have sailed four thousand miles of sea. A 
low black cliff, crowned by a wall; a battery at either end. Within, a 
few narrow streets of white houses, running parallel with the sea, upon 
a strip of flat, which seemed not two hundred yards in breadth; and 
behind, the mountain wall, covering the whole in deepest shade. How 
that wall was ever ascended to the inland, seemed the puzzle; but 
Drew, who had been off the place before, pointed out to them a narrow 
path, which wound upward through a glen, seemingly sheer perpen- 
dicular. That was the road to the capital, if any man dare try it. In 
spite of the shadow of the mountain, the whole place wore a dusty and 
glaring look. The breaths of air which came off the land were utterly 
stifling; and no wonder, for La Guayra, owing to the radiation of that 


At 849 

vast fire-brick of heated rock, is one of the hottest spots upon the face 
of the whole earth. 

Where was the harbor? There was none. Only an open road- 
stead, wherein lay tossing at anchor five vessels. The two outer ones 
were small merchant caravels. Behind them lay two long, low, ugly- 
looking craft, at sight of which Yeo gave a long wheugh. 

“ Galleys, as I’m a sinful saint! And what’s that big one inside of 
them, Robert Drew? She has more than hawseholes in her idolatrous 
black sides, I think.” 

“ We shall open her astern of the galleys in another minute,” said 
Amyas. “ Look out, Cary, your eyes are better than mine.” 

“ Six round port-holes on the main deck,” quoth Will. 

“And I can see the brass patararoes glittering on her poop,” quoth 
Amyas. “ Will, we’re in for it.” 

“ In for it we are, Captain. 

4 'Farewell, farewell, my parents dear, 

I never shall see you more I fear. 

Let’s go in, nevertheless, and pound the Don’s ribs, my old lad of 
Smerwick. Eh? Three to one is very fair odds.” 

“ Not underneath those fort guns, I beg leave to say,” quoth Yeo. 
“ If the Philistines will but come out unto us, we will make them like 
unto Zeba and Zalmunna.” 

“ Quite true,” said Amyas. “ Game cocks are game cocks, but rea- 
son’s reason.” 

“If the Philistines are not coming out, they are going to send a 
messenger instead,” quoth Cary. “ Look out, all thin skulls ! ” 

And as he spoke, a puff of white smoke rolled from the eastern fort, 
and a heavy ball plunged into the water between it and the ship. 

“ I don’t altogether like this,” quoth Amyas. “ What do they mean 
by firing on us without warning? And what are these ships of war 
doing here? Drew, you told me the armadas never lay here.” 

“No more I believe they do, sir, on account of the anchorage being 
so bad, as you may see. I’m mortal afeard that rascal’s story was true, 
and that the Dons have got wind of our coming.” 

“ Run up a white flag, at all events. If they do expect us, they 
must have known some time since, or how could they have got their 
craft hither? ” 

“ True, sir. They must have come from Santa Martha, at the least; 


350 Westward Ho ! 

perhaps from Carthagena. And that would take a month at least 
going and coming.” 

Amyas suddenly recollected Eustace’s threat in the wayside inn. 
Could he have betrayed their purpose? Impossible! 

“ Let us hold a council of war, at all events, Frank.” 

F rank was absorbed in a very different matter. A half mile to the 
eastward of the town, two or three hundred feet up the steep mountain 
side, stood a large, low, white house, embosomed in trees and gardens. 
There was no other house of similar size near; no place for one. And 
was not that the royal flag of Spain which flaunted before it? That 
must be the governor’s house ; that must be the abode of the Rose of 
Torridge! And Frank stood devouring it with wild eyes, till he had 
persuaded himself that he could see a woman’s figure walking upon the 
terrace in front, and that the figure was none other than hers whom he 
sought. Amyas could hardly tear him away to a council of war, which 
was a sad, and only not a peevish one. 

The three adventurers, with Brimblecombe, Yeo, and Drew, went 
apart upon the poop; and each looked the other in the face a while. 
For what was to be done? The plans and hopes of months were 
brought to nought in an hour. 

“ It is impossible, you see,” said Amyas at last, “ to surprise the 
town by land, while these ships are here; for if we land our men, we 
leave our ship without defense.” 

“As impossible as to challenge Don Guzman while he is not here,” 
said Cary. 

“ I wonder why the ships have not opened on us already,” said 
Drew. 

“ Perhaps they respect our flag of truce,” said Cary. “ Why not 
send in a boat to treat with them, and to inquire for ” 

“ For her? ” interrupted Frank. “ If we show that we are aware 
of her existence, her name is blasted in the eyes of those jealous 
Spaniards.” 

“And as for respecting our flag of truce, gentlemen,” said Yeo, “ if 
you will take an old man’s advice, trust them not. They will keep the 
same faith with us as they kept with Captain Hawkins at San Juan 
d’Ulloa, in that accursed business which was the beginning of all the 
wars ; when we might have taken the whole Plate-fleet, with two hun- 
dred thousand pounds’ worth of gold on board, and did not, but only 
asked license to trade like honest men. And yet, after they had 
granted us license, and deceived us by fair speech into landing our- 


851 


At la Guayrat 

selves and our ordnance, the governor and all the fleet set upon us, 
five to one, and gave no quarter to any soul whom he took. No, sir; I 
expect the only reason why they don’t attack us is because their crews 
are not on board.” 

“ They will be, soon enough, then,” said Amyas. “ I can see sol- 
diers coming down the landing-stairs.” 

And, in fact, boats full of armed men began to push off to the ships. 

“ We may thank Heaven,” said Drew, “ that we were not here two 
hours agone. The sun will be down before they are ready for sea, and 
the fellows will have no stomach to go looking for us by night.” 

“ So much the worse for us. If they will but do that, we may give 
them the slip, and back again to the town, and there try our luck ; for I 
cannot find it in my heart to leave the place without having one dash 
at it.” 

Yeo shook his head. “ There are plenty more towns along the coast 
more worth trying than this, sir: but Heaven’s will be done! ” 

And as they spoke, the sun plunged into the sea, and all was dark. 

At last it was agreed to anchor, and wait till midnight. If the ships 
of war came out, they were to try to run in past them, and, desperate 
as the attempt might be, attempt their original plan of landing to the 
westward of the town, taking it in flank, plundering the government 
storehouses, which they saw close to the landing-place, and then fight- 
ing their way back to their boats, and out of the roadstead. Two 
hours would suffice if the armada and the galleys were but once out of 
the way. 

Amyas went forward, called the men together, and told them the 
plan. It was not very cheerfully received; but what else was there to 
be done ! 

They ran down about a mile and a half to the westward, and an- 
chored. 

The night wore on, and there was no sign of stir among the ship- 
ping; for though they could not see the vessels themselves, yet their 
lights (easily distinguished by their relative height from those in the 
town above) remained motionless; and the men fretted and fumed for 
weary hours, at thus seeing a rich prize (for of course the town was 
paved with gold) within arm’s reach, and yet impossible. 

Let Amyas and his men have patience. Some short five years more, 
and the great Armada will have come and gone; and then that aveng- 
ing storm, of which they, like Oxenham, Hawkins, and Drake, are but 
the avant-couriers, will burst upon every Spanish port from Corunna 


352 


Westward Ho ! 

to Cadiz, from the Canaries to Havanna, and La Guayra and St. 
Yago de Leon will not escape their share. Captain Amy as Preston 
and Captain Sommers, the colonist of the Bermudas, or Sommers’ 
Islands, will land, with a force tiny enough, though larger far than 
Leigh’s, where Leigh dare not land; and taking the fort of Guayra, 
will find, as Leigh found, that their coming has been expected, and 
that the pass of the Venta, three thousand feet above, has been fortified 
with huge barricadoes, abattis, and cannon, making the capital, amid 
its ring of mountain-walls, impregnable — to all but Englishmen or 
Zouaves. For up that seven thousand feet of j)recipice, which rises 
stair on stair behind the town, those fierce adventurers will climb hand 
over hand, through rain and fog, while men lie down, and beg their 
officers to kill them, for no farther can they go. Yet farther they will 
go, hewing a path with their swords through woods of wild plantain, 
and rhododendron thickets, over (so it seems, however incredible) the 
very saddle of the Silla, 1 down upon the astonished “ Mantuanos ” of 
St. Yago, driving all before them; and having burnt the city in default 
of ransom, will return triumphant by the right road, and pass along 
the coast, the masters of the deep. 

I know not whether any men still live who count their descent from 
those two valiant captains ; but if such there be, let them be sure that 
the history of the English navy tells no more Titanic victory over na- 
ture and man than that now forgotten raid of Amy as Preston and his 
comrade, in the year of grace 1595. 

But though a venture on the town was impossible, yet there was an- 
other venture which Frank was unwilling to let slip. A light which 
now shone brightly in one of the windows of the governor’s house, was 
the lodestar to which all his thoughts were turned; and as he sat in the 
cabin with Amyas, Cary, and Jack, he opened his heart to them. 

“And are we, then,” asked he, mournfully, “ to go without doing the 
very thing for which we came? ” 

All were silent a while. At last John Brimblecombe spoke. 

“ Show me the way to do it, Mr. Frank, and I will go.” 

“ My dearest man,” said Amyas, “ what would you have? Any at- 
tempt to see her, even if she be here, would be all but certain death.” 

“And what if it were? What if it were, my brother Amyas? Lis- 
ten to me. I have long ceased to shrink from Death; but till I came 
into these magic climes, I never knew the beauty of his face.” 

a Humboldt says that there is a path from Caravellada to St. Yago, between the peaks, 
used by smugglers. This is probably the “unknowen way of the Indians,” which Preston 
used. 


853 


At JL& Gu&yr& 

Of death? ” said Cary. “ I should have said, of life. God for- 
give me ! but man might wish to live forever, if he had such a world as 
this wherein to live.” 

“And do you forget, Cary, that the more fair this passing world of 
time, by so much the more fair is that eternal world, whereof all here is 
but a shadow and a dream; by so much the more fair is He before 
whose throne the four mystic beasts, the substantial ideas of Nature 
and her powers, stand day and night, crying, ‘ Holy, holy, holy, Lord 
God of hosts, Thou hast made all things, and for Thy pleasure they are 
and were created ! 9 My friends, if He be so prodigal of His own 
glory as to have decked these lonely shores, all but unknown since the 
foundation of the world, with splendors beyond all our dreams, what 
must be the glory of His face itself! I have done with vain shadows. 
It is better to depart and to be with Him, where shall be neither desire 
nor anger, self-deception nor pretense, but the eternal fulness of real- 
ity and truth. One thing I have to do before I die, for God has laid it 
on me. Let that be done to-night, and then, farewell! ” 

“ Frank! Frank! remember our mother! ” 

“ I do remember her. I have talked over these things with her 
many a time; and where I would fain be, she would fain be also. She 
sent me out with my virgin honor, as the Spartan mother did her boy 
with the shield, saying, 4 Come back either with this, or upon this ; ’ 
and one or the other I must do, if I would meet her either in this life 
or in the next. But in the meanwhile do not mistake me; my life is 
God’s, and I promise not to cast it away rashly.” 

“ What would you do, then? ” 

“ Go up to that house, Amyas, and speak with her, if Heaven gives 
me an opportunity, as Heaven, I feel assured, will give.” 

“ And do you call that no rashness? ” 

“ Is any duty rashness? Is it rash to stand amid the flying bullets, 
if your Queen has sent you? Is it more rash to go to seek Christ’s lost 
lamb, if God and your own oath have sent you? John Brimblecombe 
answered that question for us long ago.” 

“ If you go, I go with you! ” said all three at once. 

“ No. Amyas, you owe a duty to our mother, and to your ship. 
Cary, you are heir to great estates; and are bound thereby to your 
country and to your tenants. J ohn Brimblecombe ” 

“Ay! ” squeaked Jack. “And what have you to say, Mr. Frank, 
against my going? — I, who have neither ship nor estates — except, I 
suppose, that I am not worthy to travel in such good company ? ” 


354 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Think of your old parents, John, and all your sisters.” 

“ I thought of them before I started, sir, as Mr. Cary knows, and 
you know too. I came here to keep my vow, and I am not going to 
turn renegade at the very foot of the cross.” 

“ Some one must go with you, Frank,” said Amyas ; “ if it were only 
to bring back the boat’s crew in case ” and he faltered. 

“ In case I fall,” replied Frank, with a smile. “ I will finish your 
sentence for you, lad; I am not afraid of it, though you may be for me. 
Yet some one, I fear, must go. Unhappy me! that I cannot risk my 
own worthless life without risking your more precious lives! ” 

“ Not so, Mr. Frank! Your oath is our oath, and your duty ours I ” 
said John. “ I will tell you what we will do, gentlemen all. We 
three will draw lots for the honor of going with him.” 

“ Lots? ” said Amyas. “ I don’t like leaving such grave matters to 
chance, friend John.” 

“ Chance, sir? When you have used all your own wit, and find it 
fail you, then what is drawing lots but taking the matter out of your 
own weak hands, and laying it in God’s strong hands? ” 

“Right, John!” said Frank. “So did the apostles choose their 
successor, and so did holy men of old decide controversies too subtle 
for them; and we will not be ashamed to.follow their example. For 
my part, I have often said to Sidney and to Spenser, when we have 
babbled together of Utopian governments in days which are now 
dreams to me, that I would have all officers of state chosen by lot out 
of the wisest and most fit ; so making sure that they should be called by 
God, and not by man alone. Gentlemen, do you agree to Sir John’s 
advice ! ” 

They agreed, seeing no better counsel, and John put three slips of 
paper into Frank’s hand, with the simple old apostolic prayer — 
“ Show which of us three Thou hast chosen.” 

The lot fell upon Amyas Leigh. 

Frank shuddered, and clasped his hands over his face. 

“Well,” said Cary, “I have ill-luck to-night: but Frank goes at 
least in good company.” 

“Ah, that it had been I! ” said Jack; “ though I suppose I was too 
poor a body to have such an honor fall on me. And yet it is hard for 
flesh and blood ; hard indeed to have come all this way, and not to see 
her after all! ” 

“Jack,” said Frank, “you are kept to do better work than this, 
doubt not. But if the lot had fallen on you — ay, if it had fallen on a 


355 


At JL& Gu&yr& 

three years’ child, I would have gone up as cheerfully with that child to 
lead me, as I do now with this my brother! Amyas, can we have a 
boat, and a crew? It is near midnight already.” 

Amyas went on deck, and asked for six volunteers. Whosoever 
would come, Amyas would double out of his own purse any prize- 
money which might fall to that man’s share. 

One of the old Pelican's crew, Simon Evans of Clovelly, stepped out 
at once. 

“ Why six only, Captain? Give the word, and any and all of us 
will go up with you, sack the house, and bring off the treasure and the 
lady, before two hours are out.” 

“ No, no, my brave lads! As for treasure, if there be any, it is sure 
to have been put all safe into the forts, or hidden in the mountains; 
and as for the lady, God forbid that we should force her a step without 
her own will.” 

The honest sailor did not quite understand this punctilio: but — 

“ W ell, Captain,” quoth he, “ as you like; but no man shall say that 
you asked for a volunteer, were it to jump down a shark’s throat, but 
what you had me first of all the crew.” 

After this sort of temper had been exhibited, three or four more 
came forward- — Yeo was very anxious to go, but Amyas forbade him. 

“ I’ll volunteer, sir, without reward, for this or anything; though ” 
(added he in a lower tone) “ I would to Heaven that the thought had 
never entered your head.” 

“And so would I have volunteered,” said Simon Evans, “ if it were 
the ship’s quarrel, or the Queen’s ; but being it’s a private matter of the 
Cap tain’s, and I’ve a wife and children at home, why I take no shame 
to myself for asking money for my life.” 

So the crew was made up; but ere they pushed off, Amyas called 
Cary aside — 

“ If I perish, Will ” 

“ Don’t talk of such things, dear old lad.” 

“ I must. Then you are captain. Do nothing without Yeo and 
Drew. But if they approve, go right north away for San Domingo 
and Cuba, and try the ports; they can have no news of us there, and 
there is booty without end. Tell my mother that I died like a gentle- 
man; and mind— mind, dear lad, to keep your temper with the men, 
let the poor fellows grumble as they may. Mind but that, and fear 
God, and all will go well.” 

The tears were glistening in Cary’s eyes as he pressed Amyas s 


356 Westward Ho ! 

hand, and watched the two brothers down over the side upon their 
desperate errand. 

They reached the pebble beach. There seemed no difficulty about 
finding the path to the house — so bright was the moon, and so careful 
a survey of the place had Frank taken. Leaving the men with the 
boat (Amyas had taken care that they should be well armed), they 
started up the beach, with their swords only. Frank assured Amyas 
that they would find a path leading from the beach up to the house, 
and he was not mistaken. They found it easily, for it was made of 
white shell sand; and following it struck into a “ tunal,” or belt of tall 
thorny cactuses. Through this the path wound in zigzags up a steep 
rocky slope, and ended at a wicket-gate. They tried it, and found it 
open. 

“ She may expect us,” whispered Frank. 

“ Impossible! ” 

“Why not? She must have seen our ship; and if, as seems, the 
townsfolk know who we are, how much more must she! Yes, doubt it 
not, she still longs to hear news of her own land, and some secret sym- 
pathy will draw her down toward the sea to-night. See! the light is in 
the window still ! ” 

“ But if not,” said Amyas, who had no such expectation, “ what is 
your plan? ” 

“ I have none.” 

“ None? ” 

“ I have imagined twenty different ones in the last hour; but all are 
equally uncertain, impossible. I have ceased to struggle — I go where 
I am called, love’s willing victim. If Heaven accept the sacrifice, it 
will provide the altar and the knife.” 

Amyas was at his wits’ end. Judging of his brother by himself, he 
had taken for granted that Frank had some well-concocted scheme for 
gaining admittance to the Rose; and as the wiles of love were alto- 
gether out of his province, he had followed in full faith such a sans- 
appel as he held Frank to be. But now he almost doubted of his 
brother’s sanity, though Frank’s manner was perfectly collected and 
his voice firm. Amyas, honest fellow, had no understanding of that 
intense devotion, which so many in those days (not content with look- 
ing on it as a lofty virtue, and yet one to be duly kept in its place by 
other duties) prided themselves on pampering into the most fantastic 
and self-willed excesses. 

Beautiful folly! the death-song of which two great geniuses were 


At -L* Gufcyra, 357 

composing at that very moment, each according to his light. For, 
while Spenser was embalming in immortal verse all that it contained 
of noble and Christian elements, Cervantes sat, perhaps, in his dun- 
geon, writing with his left hand Don Quixote, — saddest of books, in 
spite of all its wit; the story of a pure and noble soul, who mistakes this 
actual life for that ideal one which he fancies (and not so wrongly 
either) eternal in the heavens: and finding, instead of a battle-field for 
heroes in God’s cause, nothing but frivolity, heartlessness and godless- 
ness, becomes a laughing-stock, — and dies. One of the saddest books, 
I say again, which man can read. 

Amyas hardly dare trust himself to speak, for fear of saying too 
much ; but he could not help saying — 

“ You are going to certain death, Frank.” 

“ Did I not entreat,” answered he very quietly, “ to go alone? ” 

Amyas had half a mind to compel him to return: but he feared 
Frank’s obstinacy; and feared, too, the shame of returning on board 
without having done anything; so they went up through the wicket- 
gate, along a smooth turf walk, into what seemed a pleasure-garden, 
formed by the hand of man, or rather of woman. For by the light, 
not only of the moon, but of the innumerable fire-flies, which flitted to 
and fro across the sward like fiery imps sent to light the brothers on 
their way, they could see that the bushes on either side, and the trees 
above their heads, were decked with flowers of such strangeness and 
beauty, that, as Frank once said of Barbados, “ even the gardens of 
Wilton were a desert in comparison.” All around were orange and 
lemon trees (probably the only addition which man had made to 
Nature’s prodigality), the fruit of which, in that strange colored 
light of the fire-flies, flashed in their eyes like balls of burnished 
gold and emerald; while great white tassels swinging from every 
tree in the breeze which swept down the glade, tossed in their 
faces a fragrant snow of blossoms, and glittering drops of perfumed 
dew. 

“ What a paradise! ” said Amyas to Frank, “ with the serpent in it, 
as of old. Look!” 

And as he spoke, there dropped slowly down from a bough, right 
before them, what seemed a living chain of gold, ruby, and sapphire. 
Both stopped, and another glance showed the small head and bright 
eyes of a snake, hissing and glaring full in their faces. 

“ See! ” said Frank. “And he comes, as of old, in the likeness of 
an angel of light. Do not strike it. There are worse devils to be 


358 


Westward Ho ! 

fought with to-night than that poor beast.” And stepping aside, they 
passed the snake safely, and arrived in front of the house. 

It was, as I have said, a long low house, with balconies along the 
upper story, and the under part mostly open to the wind. The light 
was still burning in the window. 

“ Whither now? ” said Amyas, in a tone of desperate resignation. 

“ Thither! Where else on earth? ” and Frank pointed to the light, 
trembling from head to foot, and pushed on. 

“ For Heaven’s sake! Look at the negroes on the barbecu! ” 

It was indeed time to stop ; for on the barbecu, or terrace of white 
plaster, which ran all around the front, lay sleeping full twenty black 
figures. 

“What will you do now? You must step over them to gain an 
entrance.” 

“Wait here, and I will go up gently toward the window. She may 
see me. She will see me as I step into the moonlight. At least I 
know an air by which she will recognize me, if I do but hum a 
stave.” 

“ Why, you do not even know that that light is hers! — Down, for 
your life! ” 

And Amyas dragged him down into the bushes on his left hand; for 
one of the negroes, wakening suddenly with a cry, had sat up, and 
began crossing himself four or five times, in fear of “ Duppy,” and 
mumbling various charms, aves, or what not. 

The light above was extinguished instantly. 

“ Did you see her? ” whispered Frank. 

“ No.” 

“ I did — the shadow of the face, and the neck! Can I be mis- 
taken? ” And then, covering his face with his hands, he murmured to 
himself, “ Misery! misery! So near, and yet impossible? ” 

“ Would it be the less impossible, were you face to face? Let us go 
back. We cannot go up without detection, even if our going were of 
use. Come back, for God’s sake, ere all is lost ! If you have seen her, 
as you say, you know at least that she is alive, and safe in his 
house ” 

“As his mistress? or as his wife? Do I know that yet, Amyas, and 
can I depart until I know? ” 

There was a few minutes’ silence, and then Amyas, making one last 
attempt to awaken Frank to the absurdity of the whole thing, and to 
laugh him, if possible, out of it, as argument had no effect — 


359 


At X* Gu&yr& 

“ My dear fellow, I am very hungry and sleepy; and this bush is 

very prickly; and my boots are full of ants ” 

“So are mine. — Look!” and Frank caught Amyas’s arm, and 
clenched it tight. 

F or round the farther corner of the house a dark cloaked figure stole 
gently ^ turning a look now and then upon the sleeping negroes, and 
came on right toward them. 

" Did I not tell you she would come? ” whispered Frank, in a trium- 
phant tone. 

Amyas was quite bewildered ; and to his mind the apparition seemed 
magical, and F rank prophetic ; for as the figure came nearer, incredu- 
lous as he tried to be, there was no denying that the shape and the walk 
were exactly those of her, to find whom they had crossed the Atlantic. 
True, the figure was somewhat taller; but then, “ she must be grown 
since I saw her,” thought Amyas; and his heart for the moment beat 
as fiercely as Frank’s. 

But what was that behind her? Her shadow against the white wall 
of the house? Not so. Another figure, cloaked likewise, but taller 
far, was following on her steps. It was a man’s. They could see that 
he wore a broad sombrero. It could not be Don Guzman, for he was 
at sea. Who then? Here was a mystery; perhaps a tragedy. And 
both brothers held their breaths, while Amyas felt whether his sword 
was loose in the sheath. 

The Rose (if indeed it was she)' was within ten yards of them, 
when she perceived that she was followed. She gave a little 
shriek. The cavalier sprang forward, lifted his hat courteously, 
and joined her, bowing low. The moonlight was full upon his 
face. 

“ It is Eustace, our cousin ! How came he here, in the name of all 
the fiends? ” 

“Eustace! Then that is she after all!” said Frank, forgetting 
everything else in her. 

And now flashed across Amyas all that had passed between him 
and Eustace in the moorland inn, and Parracombe’s story, too, of the 
suspicious gipsy. Eustace had been beforehand with them, and 
warned Don Guzman! All was explained now: but how had he got 
hither? 

“ The devil, his master, sent him hither on a broomstick, I suppose: 
or what matter how? Here he is; and here we aie, worse luck! 
And, setting his teeth, Amyas awaited the end. 


360 


Westward Ho ! 

The two came on, talking earnestly, and walking at a slow pace, so 
that the brothers could hear every word. 

“ What shall we do now? ” said Frank. “ We have no right to be 
eavesdroppers.” 

“ But we must be, right or none.” And Amyas held him down 
firmly by the arm. 

“ But whither are you going, then, my dear madam? ” they heard 
Eustace say in a wheedling tone. “ Can you wonder if such strange 
conduct should cause at least sorrow to your admirable and faithful 
husband? ” 

“ Husband! ” whispered Frank faintly to Amyas. “ Thank God, 
thank God! I am content. Let us go.” 

But to go was impossible; for, as fate would have it, the two had 
stopped just opposite them. 

“ The inestimable Senor Don Guzman ” began Eustace again. 

“ What do you mean by praising him to me in this fulsome way, 
sir? Do you suppose that I do not know his virtues better than you? ” 

“ If you do, madam ” (this was spoken in a harder tone), “ it were 
wise for you to try them less severely, than by wandering down toward 
the beach on the very night that you know his most deadly enemies 
are lying in wait to slay him, plunder his house, and most probably to 
carry you off from him.” 

“ Carry me off? I will die first ! ” 

“ Who can prove that to him? Appearances are at least against 
you.” 

“ My love to him, and his trust for me, sir! ” 

“ His trust? Have you forgotten, madam, what passed last week, 
and why he sailed yesterday? ” 

The only answer was a burst of tears. Eustace stood watching 
her with a terrible eye; but they could see his face writhing in the 
moonlight. 

“ Oh ! ” sobbed she at last. “And if I have been imprudent, was it 
not natural to wish to look once more upon an English ship? Are 
you not English as well as I ? Have you no longing recollections of 
the dear old land at home? ” 

Eustace was silent; but his face worked more fiercely than ever. 

“ How can he ever know it? ” 

“ Why should he not know it? ” 

“Ah! ” she burst out passionately, “ why not, indeed, while you are 
here? You, sir, the tempter, you the eavesdropper, you the sunderer 


Alf la Guayra 861 

of loving hearts! You, serpent, who found our home a paradise, and 
see it now a hell! ” 

“ Do you dare to accuse me thus, madam, without a shadow of 
evidence? ” 

“ Dare? I dare anything, for I know all! I have watched you, 
sir, and I have borne with you too long.” 

“ Me, madam, whose only sin toward you, as you should know by 
now, is to have loved you too well ? Rose ! Rose ! have you not blighted 
my life for me — broken my heart? And how have I repaid you? 
How but by sacrificing myself to seek you over land and sea, that I 
might complete your conversion to the bosom of that Church where 
a Virgin Mother stands stretching forth soft arms to embrace her 
wandering daughter, and cries to you all day long, ‘ Come unto me, 
ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest! ’ And 
this is my reward! ” 

“ Depart with your Virgin Mother, sir, and tempt me no more! 
You have asked me what I dare; and I dare this, upon my own ground, 
and in my own garden, I, Donna Rosa de Soto, to bid you leave this 
place now and forever, after having insulted me by talking of your 
love, and tempted me to give up that faith which my husband promised 
me he would respect and protect. Go, sir ! ” 

The brothers listened breathless with surprise as much as with rage. 
Love and conscience, and perhaps, too, the pride of her lofty alliance, 
had converted the once gentle and dreamy Rose into a very Roxana; 
but it was only the impulse of a moment. The words had hardly 
passed her lips, when, terrified at what she had said, she burst into a 
fresh flood of tears; while Eustace answered calmly, — 

“ I go, madam: but how know you that I may not have orders, and 
that, after your last strange speech, my conscience may compel me to 
obey those orders, to take you with me? ” 

“ Me? with you? ” 

“ My heart has bled for you, madam, for many a year. It longs 
now that it had bled itself to death, and never known the last worst 
agony of telling you ” 

And drawing close to her he whispered in her ear — what, the broth- 
ers heard not— but her answer was a shriek which rang through the 
woods, and sent the night-birds fluttering up from every bough above 
their heads. 

“ By Heaven ! ” said Amyas, “ I can stand this no longer. Cut 
that devil’s throat I must ” 


362 


Westward Ho ! 

“ She is lost if his dead body is found by her.” 

“We are lost, if we stay here, then,” said Amyas; “for those 
negroes will hurry down at her cry, and then found we must be.” 

“Are you mad, madam, to betray yourself by your own cries? The 
negroes will be here in a moment. I give you one last chance for 
life then: ” and Eustace shouted in Spanish at the top of his voice, 
“Help, help, servants! Your mistress is being carried off by 
bandits ! ” 

“ What do you mean, sir? ” 

“ Let your woman’s wit supply the rest: and forget not him who 
thus saves you from disgrace.” 

Whether the brothers heard the last words or not, I know not; but 
taking for granted that Eustace had discovered them, they sprang to 
their feet at once, determined to make one last appeal, and then to 
sell their lives as dearly as they could. 

Eustace started back at the unexpected apparition; but a second 
glance showed him Amyas’s mighty bulk; and he spoke calmly, — 

“ You see, madam, I did not call without need. Welcome, good 
cousins. My charity, as you perceive, has found means to outstrip 
your craft; while the fair lady, as was but natural, has been true to 
her assignation ! ” 

“ Liar! ” cried Frank. “ She never knew of our being ” 

“ Credat Judseus!” answered Eustace: but, as he spoke, Amyas 
burst through the bushes at him. There was no time to be lost; and 
ere the giant could disentangle himself from the boughs and shrubs, 
Eustace had slipped off his long cloak, thrown it over Amyas’s head, 
and ran up the alley shouting for help. 

Mad with rage, Amyas gave chase: but in two minutes more, 
Eustace was safe among the ranks of the negroes, who came shouting 
and jabbering down the path. 

He rushed back. Frank was just ending some wild appeal to 
Rose — 

“ Your conscience! your religion! ” 

“ No, never! I can face the chance of death, but not the loss of 
him. Go! for God’s sake leave me! ” 

“ You are lost, then, — and I have ruined you! ” 

“ Come off, now or never,” cried Amyas, clutching him by the arm, 
and dragging him away like a child. 

“ You forgive me? ” cried he. 

“ Forgive you? ” and she burst into tears again. 


363 


At JL& 

F rank burst into tears also. 

“ Let me go back, and die with her — Amyas! — my oath! — my 
honor! ” and he struggled to turn back. 

Amyas looked back too, and saw her standing calmly, with her hands 
folded across her breast, awaiting Eustace and the servants; and he 
half turned to go back also. Both saw how fearfully appearances 
had put her into Eustace’s power. Had he not a right to suspect 
that they were there by her appointment ; that she was going to escape 
with them? And would not Eustace use his power? The thought of 
the Inquisition crossed their minds. “ Was that the threat which 
Eustace had whispered? ” asked he of Frank. 

“ It was,” groaned Frank in answer. 

For the first and last time in his life, Amyas Leigh stood irresolute. 

“ Back, and stab her to the heart first! ” said Frank, struggling to 
escape from him. 

Oh, if Amyas were but alone, and Frank safe home in England! 
To charge the whole mob, kill her, kill Eustace, and then cut his way 
back again to the ship, or die, — what matter? as he must die some 
day, — sword in hand! But Frank! — and then flashed before his eyes 
his mother’s hopeless face; then rang in his ears his mother’s last 
bequest to him of that frail treasure. Let Rose, let honor, let the 
whole world perish, he must save Frank. See! the negroes were up 
with her now — past her — away for life! and once more he dragged 
his brother down the hill, and through the wicket, only just in time; 
for the whole gang of negroes were within ten yards of them in full 
pursuit. 

“ Frank,” said he, sharply, “ if you ever hope to see your mother 
again, rouse yourself, man, and fight! ” And, without waiting for an 
answer, he turned, and charged up-hill upon his pursuers, who saw 
the long bright blade, and fled instantly. 

Again he hurried Frank down the hill; the path wound in zigzags, 
and he feared that the negroes would come straight over the cliff, and 
so cut off his retreat: but the prickly cactuses were too much for them, 
and they were forced to follow by the path, while the brothers (Frank 
having somewhat regained his senses) turned every now and then to 
menace them: but once on the rocky path, stones began to fly fast; 
small ones fortunately, and wide and wild for want of light — but when 
they reached the pebble-beach? Both were too proud to run; but, if 
ever Amyas prayed in his life, he prayed for the last twenty yards 
before he reached the water-mark. 


364 Westward Ho i 

“ Now, Prank! down to the boat as hard as you can run, while I 
keep the curs back.” 

“Amyas! what do you take me for? My madness brought you 
hither: your devotion shall not bring me back without you.” 

“ Together, then! ” 

And putting Frank’s arm through his, they hurried down, shouting 
to their men. 

The boat was not fifty yards off: but fast traveling over the pebbles 
was impossible, and long ere half the distance was crossed, the negroes 
were on the beach, and the storm burst. A volley of great quartz 
pebbles whistled round their heads. 

“ Come on, Frank! for life’s sake! Men, to the rescue ! Ah! what 
was that?” 

The dull crash of a pebble against Frank’s fair head! Drooping 
like Hyacinthus beneath the blow of the quoit, he sank on Amyas’s 
arm. The giant threw him over his shoulder, and plunged blindly 
on, — himself struck again and again. 

“ Fire, men! Give it the black villains! ” 

The arquebuses crackled from the boat in front. What were those 
dull thuds which answered from behind? Echoes? No. Over his 
head the caliver-balls went screeching. The governor’s guard have 
turned out, followed them to the beach, fixed their calivers, and are 
firing over the negroes’ heads, as the savages rush down upon the 
hapless brothers. 

If, as all say, there are moments which are hours, how many hours 
was Amyas Leigh in reaching that boat’s bow? Alas! the negroes 
are there as soon as he, and. the guard, having left their calivers, are 
close behind them, sword in hand. Amyas is up to his knees in 
water — battered with stones — blinded with blood. The boat is sway- 
ing off and on against the steep pebble-bank: he clutches at it — 
misses — falls headlong — rises half choked with water: but Frank is 
still in his arms. Another heavy blow — a confused roar of shouts, 
shots, curses — a confused mass of negroes and English, foam and 
pebbles — and he recollects no more. 

********* 

He is lying in the stern-sheets of the boat; stiff, weak, half blind 
with blood. He looks up; the moon is still bright overhead: but they 
are away from the shore now, for the wave-crests are dancing white be- 
fore the land-breeze, high above the boat’s side. The boat seems 
strangely empty. Two men are pulling instead of six! And what 


365 


At JL& Gu&yrft 

is this lying heavy across his chest? He pushes, and is answered by a 
groan. He puts his hand down to rise, and is answered by another 
groan. 

“ What’s this? ” 

“All that are left of us,” says Simon Evans of Clovelly. 

“All? ” The bottom of the boat seemed paved with human bodies. 
“ Oh God! oh God! ” moans Amyas, trying to rise. “And where — 
where is Frank? Frank! ” 

“ Mr. Frank! ” cries Evans. There is no answer. 

“ Dead? ” shrieks Amyas. “ Look for him, for God’s sake, look! ” 
and struggling from under his living load, he peers into each pale and 
bleeding face. 

“ Where is he ! Why don’t you speak ; forward there ? ” 

“ Because we have nought to say, sir,” answers Evans, almost surlily. 

Frank was not there. 

“ Put the boat about! To the shore! ” roars Amyas. 

“ Look over the gunwale, and judge for yourself, sir! ” 

The waves are leaping fierce and high before a furious land-breeze. 
Return is impossible. 

“ Cowards! villains! traitors! hounds! to have left him behind.” 

“ Listen you to me, Captain Amyas Leigh,” says Simon Evans, 
resting on his oar; “ and hang me for mutiny, if you will, when we’re 
aboard, if we ever get there. Isn’t it enough to bring us out to death 
(as you knew yourself, sir, for you’re prudent enough) to please that 
poor young gentleman’s fancy about a wench; but you must call 
coward an honest man that have saved your life this night, and not a 
one of us but has his wound to show? ” 

Amyas was silent ; the rebuke was just. 

“ I tell you, sir, if we’ve hove a stone out of this boat since we got 
off, we’ve hove two hundredweight, and, if the Lord had not fought 
for us, she’d have been beat to noggin-staves there on the beach.” 

“ How did I come here, then? ” 

“ Tom Hart dragged you in out of five feet water, and then thrust 
the boat off, and had his brains beat out for reward. All were knocked 
down but us two. So help me God, we thought that you had hove 
Mr. Frank on board just as you were knocked down, and saw William 
Frost drag him in.” 

But William Frost was lying senseless in the bottom of the boat. 
There was no explanation. After all, none was needed. 

“And I have three wounds from stones, and this man behind me 


366 Westward Ho ! 

as many more, beside a shot through his shoulder. Now, sir, be we 
cowards? ” 

“ You have done your duty,” said Amyas, and sank down in the 
boat, and cried as if his heart would break; and then sprang up, and 
wounded as he was, took the oar from Evans’s hands. With weary 
work they made the ship, but so exhausted that another boat had to 
be lowered to get them alongside. 

The alarm being now given, it was hardly safe to remain where they 
were; and after a stormy and sad argument, it was agreed to weigh 
anchor and stand off and on till morning; for Amyas refused to leave 
the spot till he was compelled, though he had no hope (how could he 
have?) that Frank might still be alive. And perhaps it was well for 
them, as will appear in the next chapter, that morning did not find 
them at anchor close to the town. 

However that may be, so ended that fatal venture of mistaken 
chivalry. 




CHAPTER XX 

Spanish Bloodhounds and English Mastiffs. 

“Full seven long hours in all men’s sight 
This fight endured sore, 

Until our men so feeble grew, 

That they could fight no more. 

And then upon dead horses 
Full savorly they fed, 

And drank the puddle water, 

They could no better get. 

“When they had fed so freely 
They kneeled on the ground, 

And gave God thanks devoutly for 
The favor they had found ; 

Then beating up their colors, 

The fight they did renew ; 

And turning to the Spaniards, 

A thousand more they slew.” 

The brave Lord Willoughby. 1586 . 

When the sun leaped up the next morning, and the tropic light 
flashed suddenly into the tropic day, Amyas was pacing the deck, with 
disheveled hair and torn clothes, his eyes red with rage and weeping, 
his heart full — how can I describe it? Picture it to yourselves, picture 
it to yourselves, you who have ever lost a brother; and you who have 
not, thank God that you know nothing of his agony. Full of im- 
possible projects, he strode and staggered up and down, as the ship 
thrashed close-hauled through the rolling seas. He would go back 
and burn the villa. He would take Guayra, and have the life of 
every man in it in return for his brother’s. “ We can do it, lads! ” he 
shouted. “ If Drake took Nombre de Dios, we can take La Guayra.” 
And every voice shouted, “ Yes.” 

“ We will have it, Amyas, and have Franjv too, yet,” cried Cary; 
but Amyas shook his head. He knew, and knew not why* he knew, 
that all the ports in New Spain would never restore to him that one 
beloved face. 

“ Yes, he shall be well avenged. And look there ! There is the first 
crop of our vengeance.” And he pointed toward the shore, where 


368 


Westward Ho ! 

between them and the now distant peaks of the Silla, three sails 
appeared, not five miles to windward. 

“ There are the Spanish bloodhounds on our heels, the same ships 
which we saw yesterday off Guayra. Back, lads, and welcome them, 
if they were a dozen.” 

There was a murmur of applause from all around; and if any young 
heart sank for a moment at the prospect of fighting three ships at once, 
it was awed into silence by the cheer which rose from all the older 
men, and by Salvation Yeo’s stentorian voice. 

“ If there were a dozen, the Lord is with us, who has said, ‘ One of 
you shall chase a thousand/ Clear away, lads, and see the glory of 
the Lord this day.” 

“Amen! ” cried Cary; and the ship was kept still closer to the wind. 

Amyas had revived at the sight of battle. He no longer felt his 
wounds, or his great sorrow; even Frank’s last angel’s look grew 
dimmer every moment as he bustled about the deck; and ere a quarter 
of an hour had passed, his voice cried firmly and cheerfully as of old — 

“ Now, my masters, let us serve God, and then to breakfast, and 
after that clear for action.” 

Jack Brimblecombe read the daily prayers, and the prayers before 
a fight at sea, and his honest voice trembled, as, in the Prayer for all 
Conditions of Men (in spite of Amyas’s despair), he added, “and 
especially for our dear brother Mr. Francis Leigh, perhaps captive 
among the idolaters ; ” and so they rose. 

“ Now, then,” said Amyas, “ to breakfast. A Frenchman fights 
best fasting, a Dutchman drunk, an Englishman full, and a Spaniard 
when the devil is in him, and that’s always.” 

“And good beef and the good cause are a match for the devil,” said 
Cary. “ Come down, Captain; you must eat too.” 

Amyas shook his head, took the tiller from the steersman, and bade 
him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in 
five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, 
coaxed them down Amyas’s throat, as a nurse does with a child, and 
then scuttled below again with tears hopping down his face. 

Amyas stood still steering. His face was grown seven years older 
in the last night. A terrible set calm was on him. Woe to the man 
who came across him that day! 

“ There are three of them, you see, my masters,” said he, as the crew 
came on deck again. “A big ship forward, and two galleys astern of 
her. The big ship may keep; she is a race ship, and if we can but 


869 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs 

recover the wind of her, we will see whether our height is not a match 
for her length. We must give her the slip, and take the galleys first.” 

“ I thank the Lord,” said Yeo, “ who has given so wise a heart to 
so young a general; a very David and Daniel, saving his presence, 
lads ; and if any dare not follow him, let him be as the men of Meroz 
and of Succoth. Amen! Silas Staveley, smite me that boy over the 
head, the young monkey; why is he not down at the powder-room 
door? ” 

And Yeo went about his gunnery, as one who knew how to do it, 
and had the most terrible mind to do it thoroughly, and the most 
terrible faith that it was God’s work. 

So all fell to ; and though there was comparatively little to be done, 
the ship having been kept as far as could be in fighting order all night, 
yet there was “ clearing of decks, lacing of nettings, making of bul- 
warks, fitting of waist-cloths, arming of tops, tallowing of pikes, sling- 
ing of yards, doubling of sheets and tacks,” enough to satisfy even the 
pedantical soul of Richard Hawkins himself. Amyas took charge of 
the poop, Cary of the forecastle, and Yeo, as gunner, of the main-deck, 
while Drew, as master, settled himself in the waist; and all was ready, 
and more than ready, before the great ship was within two miles of 
them. 

And now, while the mastiffs of England and the bloodhounds of 
Spain are nearing and nearing over the rolling surges, thirsting for 
each other’s blood, let us spend a few minutes at least in looking at 
them both, and considering the causes which in those days enabled the 
English to face and conquer armaments immensely superior in size 
and number of ships, and to boast that in the whole Spanish war but 
one Queen’s ship, the Revenge , and (if I recollect right) but one 
private man-of-war. Sir Richard Hawkins’s Dainty , had ever struck 
their colors to the enemy. 

What was it which enabled Sir Richard Grenvile’s Revenge , in his 
last fearful fight off the Azores, to endure, for twelve hours before she 
struck, the attack of eight Spanish armadas, of which two (three times 
her own burden) sank at her side; and after all her masts were gone, 
and she had been boarded three times without success, to defy to the 
last the whole fleet of fifty-four sail, which lay around Jier, waiting 
for her to sink, “ like dogs around the dying forest king ”? 

What enabled young Richard Hawkins’s Dainty , though half her 
guns were useless through the carelessness or treachery of the gunner, 
to maintain for three days a running fight with two Spaniards of equal 


370 Westward Ho ! 

size with her, double the weight of metal, and ten times the number 
of men? 

What enabled Sir George Cary’s illustrious ship, the Content , to 
fight single-handed, from seven in the morning till eleven at night, 
with four great armadas and two galleys, though her heaviest gun was 
but one nine-pounder, and for many hours she had but thirteen men 
fit for service? 

What enabled, in the very year of which I write, those two “ valiant 
Turkey Merchantmen of London, the Merchant Royal and the Tobie,” 
with their three small consorts, to cripple, off Pantellaria in the Medi- 
terranean, the whole fleet of Spanish galleys sent to intercept them, 
and return triumphant through the Straits of Gibraltar? 

And lastly, what in the fight of 1588, whereof more hereafter, 
enabled the English fleet to capture, destroy, and scatter that Great 
Armada, with the loss (but not the capture) of one pinnace, and one 
gentleman of note? 

There were more causes than one: the first seems to have lain in 
the build of the English ships; the second in their superior gunnery 
and weight of metal; the third (without which the first would have 
been useless) in the hearts of the English men. 

The English ship was much shorter than the Spanish; and this (with 
the rig of those days) gave them an ease in maneuvering, which utterly 
confounded their Spanish foes. “ The English ships in the fight of 
1588,” says Camden, “ charged the enemy with marvelous agility, 
and having discharged their broadsides, flew forth presently into the 
deep, and leveled their shot directly, without missing, at those great 
ships of the Spaniards, which were altogether heavy and unwieldy.” 
Moreover, the Spanish fashion, in the West Indies at least, though not 
in the ships of the Great Armada, was, for the sake of carrying mer- 
chandise, to build their men-of-war flush-decked, or as it was called 
“ race ” (razes), which left those on deck exposed and open; while the 
English fashion was to heighten the ship as much as possible at stem 
and stern, both by the sweep of her lines, and also by stockades 
(“ close-fights and cage-works”) on the poop and forecastle, thus 
giving to the men a shelter, which was further increased by strong 
bulk-heads (“ cobridge-heads ”) across the main-deck below, divid- 
ing the ship thus into a number of separate forts, fitted with swivels 
(“bases, fowlers, and murderers”) and loopholed for musketry and 
arrows. 

But the great source of superiority was, after all, in the men them- 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs 371 

selves. The English sailor was then, as now, a quite amphibious and 
all-cunning animal, capable of turning his hand to everything, from 
needlework and carpentry to gunnery or hand-to-hand blows; and he 
was, moreover, one of a nation, every citizen of which was not merely 
permitted to carry arms, but compelled by law to practise from child- 
hood the use of the bow, and accustomed to consider sword-play and 
quarter-staff as a necessary part and parcel of education, and the 
pastime of every leisure hour. The “ fiercest nation upon earth/’ as 
they were then called, and the freest also, each man of them fought 
for himself with the self-help and self-respect of a Yankee ranger, 
and once bidden to do his work, was trusted to carry it out by his own 
wit as best he could. In one word, he was a free man. 

The English officers too, as now, lived on terms of sympathy with 
their men unknown to the Spaniards, who raised between the com- 
mander and the commanded absurd barriers of rank and blood, which 
forbade to his pride any labor but that of fighting. The English 
officers, on the other hand, brought up to the same athletic sports, the 
same martial exercises, as their men, were not ashamed to care for 
them, to win their friendship, even on emergency to consult their judg- 
ment; and used their rank, not to differ from their men, but to outvie 
them ; not merely to command and be obeyed, but, like Homer’s heroes, 
or the old Norse Vikings, to lead and be followed. Drake touched the 
true mainspring of English success, when he once (in his voyage round 
the world) indignantly rebuked some coxcomb gentlemen-adventurers 
with — “ I should like to see the gentleman that will refuse to set his 
hand to a rope. I must have the gentlemen to hale and draw with 
the mariners.” But those were days in which her Majesty’s service 
was as little over-ridden by absurd rules of seniority, as by that 
etiquette which is at once the counterfeit and the ruin of true disci- 
pline. Under Elizabeth and her ministers, a brave and a shrewd man 
was certain of promotion, let his rank or his age be what they might ; 
the true honor of knighthood covered once and for all any lowliness of 
birth ; and the merchant service (in which all the best sea-captains, even 
those of noble blood, were more or less engaged) was then a nursery, 
not only for seamen, but for warriors, in days when Spanish and 
Portuguese traders (whenever they had a chance) got rid of English 
competition by salvos of cannon-shot. 

Hence, as I have said, that strong fellow-feeling between officers 
and men; and hence mutinies (as Sir Richard Hawkins tells us) were 
all but unknown in the English ships, while in the Spanish they broke 


372 


Westward Ho ! 

out on every slight occasion. For the Spaniard, by some suicidal 
pedantry, had allowed their navy to be crippled by the same despotism, 
etiquette, and official routine, by which the whole nation was gradually 
frozen to death in the course of the next century or two; forgetting 
that, fifty years before, Cortes, Pizarro, and the early Conquistadores 
of America, had achieved their miraculous triumphs on the exactly op- 
posite method; by that very fellow-feeling between commander and 
commanded by which the English were now conquering them in their 
turn. 

Their navy was organized on a plan complete enough; but on one 
which was, as the event proved, utterly fatal to their prowess and 
unanimity, and which made even their courage and honor useless 
against the assaults of free men. “ They do, in their armadas at 
sea, divide themselves into three bodies; to wit, soldiers, mariners, 
and gunners. The soldiers and officers watch and ward as if on shore; 
and this is the only duty they undergo, except cleaning their arms, 
wherein they are not over curious. The gunners are exempted from 
all labor and care, except about the artillery; and these are either 
Almaines, Flemings, or strangers ; for the Spaniards are but indiffer- 
ently practised in this art. The mariners are but as slaves to the rest, 
to moil and to toil day and night; and those but few and bad, and not 
suffered to sleep or harbor under the decks. For in fair or foul 
weather, in storms, sun, or rain, they must pass void of covert or 
succor.” 

This is the account of one who was long prisoner on board their 
ships; let it explain itself, while I return to my tale. For the great 
ship is now within two musket-shots of the Rose, with the golden flag 
of Spain floating at her poop; and her trumpets are shouting defiance 
up the breeze, from a dozen brazen throats, which two or three answer 
lustily from the Rose , from whose poop flies the flag of England, and 
from her fore the arms of Leigh and Cary side by side, and over them 
the ship and bridge of the good town of Bideford. And then Amyas 
calls, — 

“Now, silence trumpets, waits, play up! ‘Fortune my foe!’ and 
God and the Queen be with us! ” 

Whereon (laugh not, reader, for it was the fashion of those musical, 
as well as valiant days) up rose that noble old favorite of good Queen 
Bess, from cornet and sackbut, fife and drum; while Parson Jack, 
who had taken his stand with the musicians on the poop, worked away 
lustily at his violin, and like Volker of the Nibelungen Lied. 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs 373 

“ Well played, Jack; thy elbow flies like a lamb’s tail,” said Amyas, 
forcing a jest. 

“ It shall fly to a better fiddle-bow presently, sir, an’ I have the 
luck ” 

“ Steady, helm! ” said Amyas. “ What is he after now? ” 

The Spaniard, who had been coming upon them right down the 
wind under a press of sail, took in his light canvas. 

“ He don’t know what to make of our waiting for him so bold,” 
said the helmsman. 

“ He does though, and means to fight us,” cried another. “ See, 
he is hauling up the foot of his mainsail: but he wants to keep the wind 
of us.” 

“ Let him try then,” quoth Amyas. “ Keep her closer still. Let 
no one fire till we are about. Man the starboard guns; to star- 
board, and wait, all small arm men. Pass the order down to the 
gunner, and bid all fire high, and take the rigging.” 

Bang went one of the Spaniard’s bow guns, and the shot went 
wide. Then another and another, while the men fidgeted about, 
looked at the priming of their muskets, and loosened their arrows in 
the sheaf. 

“ Lie down, men, and sing a psalm. When I want you, I’ll call 
you. Closer still, if you can, helmsman, and we will try a short ship 
against a long one. We can sail two points nearer the wind than he.” 

As Amyas had calculated, the Spaniard would gladly enough have 
stood across the Rose's bows, but knowing the English readiness, dare 
not for fear of being raked; so her only plan, if she did not intend to 
shoot past her foe down to leeward, was to put her head close to the 
wind, and wait for her on the same tack. 

Amyas laughed to himself. “ Hold on yet a while. More ways of 
killing a cat than choking her with cream. Drew, there, are your 
men ready?” 

“Ay, ay, sir! ” and on they went, closing fast with the Spaniard, till 
within a pistol-shot. 

“ Ready about! ” and about she went like an eel, and ran upon the 
opposite tack right under the Spaniard’s stern. The Spaniard, 
astounded at the quickness of the manoeuvre, hesitated a moment, and 
then tried to get about also, as his only chance; but it was too late, 
and while his lumbering length was still hanging in the wind’s eye, 
Amyas’s bowsprit had all but scraped his quarter, and the Rose passed 
slowly across his stern at ten yards’ distance. 


374 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Now then! ” roared Amyas. “ Fire, and with a will! Have at 
her, archers: have at her, muskets all!” and in an instant a storm of 
bar and chain-shot, round and canister, swept the proud Don from 
stem to stern, while through the white cloud of smoke the musket- 
balls, and the still deadlier cloth-yard arrows, whistled and rushed 
upon their venomous errand. Down went the steersman, and ever} r 
soul who manned the poop. Down went the mizzen topmast, in went 
the stern-windows and quarter-galleries; and as the smoke cleared 
away, the gorgeous painting of the Madre Dolorosa, with her heart 
full of seven swords, which, in a gilded frame, bedizened the Spanish 
stern, was shivered in splinters; while, most glorious of all, the golden 
flag of Spain, which the last moment flaunted above their heads, hung 
trailing in the water. The ship, her tiller shot away, and her helms- 
men killed, staggered helplessly a moment, and then fell up into 
the wind. 

“ Well done, men of Devon!” shouted Amyas, as cheers rent the 
welkin. 

“ She has struck,” cried some, as the deafening hurrahs died away. 

“Not a bit,” said Amyas. “ Hold on, helmsman, and leave her 
to patch her tackle while we settle the galleys.” 

On they shot merrily, and long ere the armada could get herself to 
rights again, were two good miles to windward, with the galleys 
sweeping down fast upon them. 

And two venomous-looking craft they were, as they shot through 
the short chopping sea upon some forty oars apiece, stretching their 
long sword-fish snouts over the water, as if snuffing for their prey. 
Behind this long snout, a strong square forecastle was crammed with 
soldiers, and the muzzles of cannon grinned out through port-holes, 
not only in the sides of the forecastle, but forward in the line of the 
galley’s course, thus enabling her to keep up a continual fire on a ship 
right ahead. 

The long low waist was packed full of the slaves, some five or six 
to each oar, and down the centre, between the two banks, the English 
could see the slave-drivers walking up and down a long gangway, whip 
in hand. A raised quarter-deck at the stern held more soldiers, the 
sunlight flashing merrily upon their armor and their gun-barrels; as 
they neared, the English could hear plainly the cracks of the whips, 
and the yells as of wild beasts which answered them; the roll and rattle 
of the oars, and the loud “ Ha! ” of the slaves which accompanied every 
stroke, and the oaths and curses of the drivers; while a sickening 



Through the white cloud of smoke the musket-balls and cloth-yard arrows whistled 














< 5 - 


NOV 3 m 

CCiKi4S14S 


V 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs 375 

musky smell, as of a pack of kenneled hounds, came down the wind 
from off those dens of misery. No wonder if many a young heart 
shuddered, as it faced, for the first time, the horrible reality of those 
floating hells, the cruelties whereof had rung so often in English ears, 
from the stories of their own countrymen, who had passed them, fought 
them, and now and then passed years of misery on board of them. 
Who knew but what there might be English among those sun-browned 
half-naked masses of panting wretches? 

“Must we fire upon the slaves ?” asked more than one, as the 
thought crossed him. 

Amyas sighed. 

“ Spare them all you can, in God’s name: but if they try to run us 
down, rake them we must, and God forgive us.” 

The two galleys came on abreast of each other, some forty yards 
apart. To outmanoeuvre their oars as he had done the ship’s sails, 
Amyas knew was impossible. To run from them, was to be caught 
between them and the ship. 

He made up his mind, as usual, to the desperate game. 

“ Lay her head up in the wind, helmsman, and we will wait for 
them.” 

They were now within musket-shot, and opened fire from their bow- 
guns; but, owing to the chopping sea, their aim was wild. Amyas, 
as usual, withheld his fire. 

The men stood at quarters with compressed lips, not knowing what 
was to come next. Amyas, towering motionless on the quarter-deck, 
gave his orders calmly and decisively. The men saw that lie trusted 
himself, and trusted him accordingly. 

The Spaniards, seeing him wait for them, gave a shout of joy— was 
the Englishman mad? And the two galleys converged rapidly, in- 
tending to strike him full, one on each bow. 

They were within forty yards — another minute, and the shock 
would come. The Englishman’s helm went up, his yards creaked 
round, and gathering way, he plunged upon the larboard galley. 

“A dozen gold nobles to him who brings down the steersman!” 
shouted Cary, who had his cue. 

And a flight of arrows from the forecastle rattled upon the galley’s 
quarter-deck. 

Hit or not hit, the steersman lost his nerve, and shrank from the 
coming shock. The galley’s helm went up to port, and her beak slid 
all but harmless along Amyas’s bow; a long dull grind, and then loud 


376 


Westward Ho ! 

crack on crack, as the Rose sawed slowly through the bank of oars 
from stem to stern, hurling the wretched slaves in heaps upon each 
other ; and ere her mate on the other side could swing round, to strike 
him in his new position, Amyas’s whole broadside, great and small, 
had been poured into her at pistol-shot, answered by a yell which rent 
their ears and hearts. 

“ Spare the slaves! Fire at the soldiers!” cried Amyas; but the 
work was too hot for much discrimination; for the larboard galley, 
crippled but not undaunted, swung round across his stern, and hooked 
herself venomously on to him. 

It was a move more brave than wise; for it prevented the other 
galley from returning to the attack without exposing herself a second 
time to the English broadside ; and a desperate attempt of the Span- 
iards to board at once through the stern -ports, and up the quarter was 
met with such a demurrer of shot and steel, that they found them- 
selves in three minutes again upon the galley’s poop, accompanied, 
to their intense disgust, by Amyas Leigh and twenty English swords. 

Five minutes’ hard cutting, hand to hand, and the poop was clear. 
The soldiers in the forecastle had been able to give them no assistance, 
open as they lay to the arrows and musketry from the Rose's lofty 
stern. Amyas rushed along the central gangway, shouting in 
Spanish, “ Freedom to the slaves ! death to the masters ! ” clambered 
into the forecastle, followed close by his swarm of wasps, and set them 
so good an example how to use their stings that in three minutes more 
there was not a Spaniard on board who was not dead or dying. 

“Let the slaves free!” shouted he. “ Throw us a hammer down, 
men. Hark! there’s an English voice!” 

There is indeed. From amid the wreck of broken oars and writhing 
limbs, a voice is shrieking in broadest Devon to the master, who is 
looking over the side. 

“ Oh, Robert Drew! Robert Drew! Come down, and take me 
out of hell! ” 

“ Who be you, in the name of the Lord? ” 

“ Don’t you mind William Prust, that Captain Hawkins left behind 
in the Honduras, years and years agone? There’s nine of us aboard, if 
your shot hasn’t put ’em out of their misery. Come down, if you’ve 
a Christian heart, come down ! ” 

Utterly forgetful of all discipline, Drew leaps down, hammer in 
hand, and the two old comrades rush into each other’s arms. 

Why make a long story of what took but five minutes to do? The 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs 377 

nine men (luckily none of them wounded) are freed, and helped on 
board, to be hugged and kissed by old comrades and young kinsmen; 
while the remaining slaves, furnished with a couple of hammers, are 
told to free themselves and help the English. The wretches answer 
by a shout; and Amyas, once more safe on board again, dashes after 
the other galley, which has been hovering out of reach of his guns: but 
there is no need to trouble himself about her; sickened with what she 
has got, she is struggling right up wind, leaning over to one side, and 
seemingly ready to sink. 

“Are there any English on board of her? ” asks Amyas, loth to lose 
the chance of freeing a countryman. 

“ Never a one, sir, thank God.” 

So they set to work to repair damages; while the liberated slaves, 
having shifted some of the galley’s oars, pull away after their comrade; 
and that with such a will, that in ten minutes they have caught her 
up, and careless of the Spaniard’s fire, boarded her en masse, with 
yells as of a thousand wolves. There will be fearful vengeance taken 
on those tyrants, unless they play the man this day. 

And in the meanwhile half the crew are clothing, feeding, question- 
ing, caressing those nine poor fellows thus snatched from living death: 
and Yeo, hearing the news, has rushed up on deck to welcome his 
old comrades, and — 

“ Is Michael Heard, my cousin, here among you? ” 

Yes, Michael Heard is there, white-headed rather from misery than 
age; and the embracings and questionings begin afresh. 

“ Where is my wife, Salvation Yeo? ” 

“ With the Lord.” 

“Amen! ” says the old man, with a short shudder. “ I thought so 
much; and my two boys? ” 

“ With the Lord.” 

The old man catches Yeo by the arm. 

“ How, then? ” It is Yeo’s turn to shudder now. 

“ Killed in Panama, fighting the Spaniards; sailing with Mr. Oxen- 
ham ; and ’twas I led ’em into it. May God and you forgive 
me ! ” 

“ They couldn’t die better, cousin Yeo. Where’s my girl Grace? ” 

“ Died in childbed.” 

“Anv childer? ” 

“ No.” 

The old man covers his face with his hands for a while. 


378 


Westward H© I 

“ Well, I’ve been alone with the Lord these fifteen years, so I must 
not whine at being alone a while longer — ’t won’t be long.” 

“ Put this coat on your back, uncle,” says some one. 

“ No; no coats for me. Naked came I into the world, and naked 
I go out of it this day, if I have a chance. You’m better to go to 
your work, lads, or the big one will have the wind of you yet.” 

“ So she will,” said Amyas, who has overheard; but so great is the 
curiosity on all hands that he has some trouble in getting the men to 
quarters again; indeed, they only go on condition of parting among 
themselves with them the newcomers, each to tell his sad and strange 
story. How after Captain Hawkins, constrained by famine, had put 
them ashore, they wandered in misery till the Spaniards took them; 
how instead of hanging them (as they at first intended), the Dons 
fed and clothed them, and allotted them as servants to various gentle- 
men about Mexico, where they throve, turned their hands (like true 
sailors) to all manner of trades, and made much money, and some of 
them were married, even to women of wealth; so that all went well, 
until the fatal year 1574, when, “ much against the minds of many of 
the Spaniards themselves, that cruel and bloody Inquisition was estab- 
lished for the first time in the Indies; ” and how, from that moment, 
their lives were one long tragedy ; how they were all imprisoned for a 
year and a half, not for proselytizing, but simply for not believing in 
transubstantiation; racked again and again, and at last adjudged to 
receive publicly, on Good Friday, 1575, some three hundred, some one 
hundred stripes, and to serve in the galleys for six or ten years each; 
while, as the crowning atrocity of the Moloch sacrifice, three of them 
were burnt alive in the market-place of Mexico; a story no less hideous 
than true, the details whereof whoso list may read in Plakluyt’s third 
volume, as told by Philip Miles, one of that hapless crew; as well as 
the adventures of Job Hortop, a messmate of his, who, after being 
sent to Spain, and seeing two more of his companions burnt alive at 
Seville, was sentenced to row in the galleys ten years, and after that 
to go to the “ everlasting prison remediless ” ; from which doom, after 
twenty-three years of slavery, he was delivered by the galleon Dudley , 
and came safely home to Itedriff. 

The fate of Hortop and his comrades was, of course, still unknown 
to the rescued men ; but the history even of their party was not likely 
to improve the good feeling of the crew toward the Spanish ship which 
was two miles to leeward of them, and which must be fought with, or 
fled from, before a quarter of an hour was past. So, kneeling down 


Blooahoimds and Mastiffs 37 9 

upon the deck, as many a brave crew in those days did in like case, they 
“ gave God thanks devoutly for the favor they had found; ” and then 
with one accord, at J ack’s leading, sang one and all the ninety-fourth 
Psalm : 1 

“Oh, Lord, thou dost revenge all wrong; 

Vengeance belongs to thee,” etc. 

And then again to quarters; for half the day’s work, or more than 
half, still remained to be done; and hardly were the decks cleared 
afresh, and the damage repaired as best it could be, when she came 
ranging up to leeward, as closehauled as she could. 

She was, as I said, a long flush-decked ship of full five hundred tons, 
more than double the size, in fact, of the Rose , though not so lofty in 
proportion; and many a bold heart beat loud, and no shame to them, 
as she began firing away merrily, determined, as all well knew, to 
wipe out in English blood the disgrace of her late foil. 

“ Never mind, my merry masters,” said Amyas, “ she has quantity 
and we quality.” 

“ That’s true,” said one, “ for one honest man is worth two rogues.” 

“And one culverin three of their footy little ordnance,” said an- 
other. “ So when you will, Captain, and have at her.” 

“ Let her come abreast of us, and don’t burn powder. We have 
the wind, and can do what we like with her. Serve the men out a 
horn of ale all round, steward, and all take your time.” 

So they waited for five minutes more, and then set to work quietly, 
after the fashion of English mastiffs, though, like those mastiffs, they 
waxed right mad before three rounds were fired, and the white 
splinters (sight beloved) began to crackle and fly. 

Amyas, having, as he had said, the wind, and being able to go 
nearer it than the Spaniard, kept his place at easy pointblank range for 
his two eighteen-pounder culverins, which Yeo and his mate worked 
with terrible effect. 

“ We are lacking her through and through every shot,” said he. 
“ Leave the small ordnance alone yet a while, and we shall sink her 
without them.” 

“ Whing, whing,” went the Spaniard’s shot, like so many humming- 
tops, through the rigging far above their heads; for the ill-constructed 

1 The crew of the Tobie, cast away on the Barbary coast a few years after, “ began with 
heavy hearts to sing the 12th Psalm, ‘Help, Lord, for good and godly men’ etc. Howbeit, 
ere we had finished four verses, the waves of the sea had stopped the breaths of most. 


380 


Westward Ho l 

ports of those days prevented the guns from hulling an enemy who 
was to windward, unless close alongside. 

“ Blow, jolly breeze,” cried one, “ and lay the Don over all thou 
canst. — What the murrain is gone, aloft there? ” 

Alas! a crack, a flap, a rattle; and blank dismay! An unlucky shot 
had cut the foremast (already wounded) in two, and all forward was 
a mass of dangling wreck. 

“Forward, and cut away the wreck!” said Amyas, unmoved. 
“ Small-arm men, be ready. He will be aboard of us in five minutes ! ” 

It was too true. The Rose , unmanageable from the loss of her 
head-sail, lay at the mercy of the Spaniard; and the archers and 
musqueteers had hardly time to range themselves to leeward, when the 
Madre Dolorosa's chains were grinding against the Rose's, and 
grapples tossed on board from stem to stern. 

“ Don’t cut them loose! ” roared Amyas. “ Let them stay and see 
the fun! Now, dogs of Devon, show your teeth, and hurrah for God 
and the Queen! ” 

And then began a fight most fierce and fell: the Spaniards, accord- 
ing to their fashion, attempting to board, the English, amid fierce 
shouts of “ God and the Queen! ” “ God and St. George for Eng- 
land!” sweeping them back by showers of arrows and musket balls, 
thrusting them down with pikes, hurling grenades and stink-pots from 
the tops ; while the swivels on both sides poured their grape, and bar, 
and chain, and the great main-deck guns, thundering muzzle to muzzle, 
made both ships quiver and recoil, as they smashed the round shot 
through and through each other. 

So they roared and flashed, fast clenched to each other in that devil’s 
wedlock, under a cloud of smoke beneath the cloudless tropic sky; 
while all around the dolphins gamboled, and the flying-fish shot on 
from swell to swell, and the rainbow-hued jellies opened and shut 
their cups of living crystal to the sun, as merrily as if man had never 
fallen, and hell had never broken loose on earth. 

So it raged for an hour or more, till all arms were weary, and all 
tongues clove to the mouth. And sick men, rotting with scurvy, 
scrambled up on deck, and fought with the strength of madness; and 
tiny powder-boys, handing up cartridges from the hold, laughed and 
cheered as the shots ran past their ears; and old Salvation Yeo, a text 
upon his lips, and a fury in his heart as of Joshua or Elijah in old 
time, worked on, calm and grim, but with the energy of a boy at play. 
And now and then an opening in the smoke showed the Spanish cap- 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs ssi 

tain, in his suit of black steel armor, standing cool and proud, guiding 
and pointing, careless of the iron hail, but too lofty a gentleman to 
soil his glove with aught but a knightly sword-hilt: while Amy as and 
Will, after the fashion of the English gentlemen, had stripped them- 
selves nearly as bare as their own sailors, and were cheering, thrusting, 
hewing, and hauling, here, there, and everywhere, like any common 
mariner, and filling them with a spirit of self-respect, fellow-feeling, 
and personal daring, which the discipline of the Spaniards, more per- 
fect mechanically, but cold and tyrannous, and crushing spiritually, 
never could bestow. The black-plumed Seiior was obeyed; but the 
golden-locked Amyas was followed; and would have been followed 
through the jaws of hell. 

The Spaniards, ere five minutes had passed, poured en masse into 
the Bose's waist: but only to their destruction. Between the poop 
and forecastle (as was then the fashion) the upper-deck beams were 
left open and unplanked, with the exception of a narrow gangway on 
either side; and off that fatal ledge the boarders, thrust on by those 
behind, fell headlong between the beams to the main-deck below, to 
be slaughtered helpless in that pit of destruction, by the double fire 
from the bulkheads fore and aft; while the few who kept their footing 
on the gangway, after vain attempts to force the stockades on poop 
and forecastle, leaped overboard again amid a shower of shot and 
arrows. The fire of the English was as steady as it was quick; and 
though three-fourths of the crew had never smelt powder before, they 
proved well the truth of the old chronicler’s saying (since proved 
again more gloriously than ever, at Alma, Balaklava, and Inker- 
mann) , that “ the English never fight better than in their first battle.” 

Thrice the Spaniards clambered on board; and thrice surged back 
before that deadly hail. The decks on both sides were very shambles; 
and Jack Brimblecombe, who had fought as long as his conscience 
would allow him, found, when he turned to a more clerical occupation, 
enough to do in carrying poor wretches to the surgeon, without giving 
that spiritual consolation which he longed to give, and they to receive. 
At last there was a lull in that wild storm. No shot was heard from 
the Spaniard’s upper-deck. 

Amyas leaped into the mizzen rigging, and looked through the 
smoke. Dead men he could descry through the blinding veil, rolled 
in heaps, laid flat; dead men and dying: but no man upon his feet. 
The last volley had swept the deck clear; one by one had dropped 
below to escape that fiery shower: and alone at the helm grinding his 


382 Westward Ho I 

teeth with rage, his mustachios curling up to his very eyes, stood the 
Spanish captain. 

Now was the moment for a counter-stroke. Amyas shouted for the 
boarders, and in two minutes more he was over the side, and clutch- 
ing at the Spaniard’s mizzen rigging. 

What was this? The distance between him and the enemy’s side 
was widening. Was she sheering off? Yes — and rising too, grow- 
ing bodily higher every moment, as if by magic. Amyas looked up 
in astonishment ; and saw what it was. The Spaniard was heeling 
fast over to leeward away from him. Her masts were all sloping 
forward, swifter and swifter — the end was come, then! 

“ Back! in God’s name back, men! She is sinking by the head! ” 
And with much ado some were dragged back, some leaped back — all 
but old Michael Heard. 

With hair and beard floating in the wind, the bronzed naked figure, 
like some weird old Indian fakir, still climbed on steadfastly up the 
mizzen-chains of the Spaniard, hatchet in hand. 

“Come back, Michael! Leap while you may!” shouted a dozen 
voices. Michael turned, — 

“And what should I come back for then, to go home where no one 
knoweth me? I’ll die like an Englishman this day, or I’ll know the 
reason why! ” and turning, he sprang in over the bulwarks, as the huge 
ship rolled up more and more, like a dying whale, exposing all her 
long black hulk almost down to the keel, and one of her lower-deck 
guns, as if in defiance, exploded upright into the air, hurling the ball 
to the very heavens. 

In an instant it was answered from the Rose by a column of smoke, 
and the eighteen-pound ball crashed through the bottom of the de- 
fenseless Spaniard. 

“ Who fired? Shame to fire on a sinking ship! ” 

“ Gunner Yeo, sir,” shouted a voice up from the main-deck. “ He’s 
like a madman down here.” 

“ Tell him if he fires again, I’ll put him in irons, if he were my own 
brother. Cut away the grapples aloft, men. Don’t you see how she 
drags us over? Cut away, or we shall sink with her.” 

They cut away, and the Rose , released from the strain, shook her 
feathers on the wave-crest like a freed sea-gull, while all men held 
their breaths. 

Suddenly the glorious creature righted herself ; and rose again, as 
if in noble shame, for one last struggle with her doom. Her bows 


388 


Blooaiioimds an4 Mastiffs 

were deep in the water, but her after-deck still dry. Righted: but 
only for a moment, long enough to let her crew come pouring wildly 
up on deck, with cries and prayers, and rush aft to the poop, where, 
under the flag of Spain, stood the tall captain, his left hand on the 
standard-staff, his sword pointed in his right. 

“ Back, men! ” they heard him cry, “ and die like valiant mariners.” 

Some of them ran to the bulwarks, and shouted, “ Mercy ! We sur- 
render! ” and the English broke into a cheer, and called to them to run 
her alongside. 

“ Silence! ” shouted Amyas. “ I take no surrender from mutineers. 
Senor,” cried he to the captain, springing into the rigging, and taking 
off his hat, “ for the love of God and these men, strike! and surrender 
a buena querra.” 

The Spaniard lifted his hat, and bowed courteously, and answered, 
“ Impossible, Senor. No querra is good which stains my honor.” 

“ God have mercy on you, then! ” 

“ Amen! ” said the Spaniard, crossing himself. 

She gave one awful lounge forward, and dived under the coming 
swell, hurling her crew into the eddies. Nothing but the point of her 
poop remained, and there stood the stern and steadfast Don, cap-a-pie 
in his glistening black armor, immovable as a man of iron, while over 
him the flag, which claimed the empire of both worlds, flaunted its gold 
aloft and upward in the glare of the tropic noon. 

“ He shall not carry that flag to the devil with him; I will have it 
yet, if I die for it! ” said Will Cary, and rushed to the side to leap 
overboard: but Amyas stopped him. 

“ Let him die as he has lived, with honor.” 

A wild figure sprang out of the mass of sailors who struggled and 
shrieked amid the foam, and rushed upward at the Spaniard. It was 
Michael Heard. The Don, who stood above him, plunged his sword 
into the old man’s body: but the hatchet gleamed, nevertheless: down 
went the blade through head-piece and through head; and as Heard 
sprang onward, bleeding, but alive, the steel-clad corpse rattled down 
the deck into the surge. Two more strokes, struck with the fury of a 
dying man, and the standard-staff was hewn through. Old Michael 
collected all his strength, hurled the flag far from the sinking ship, 
and then stood erect one moment, and shouted, “ God save Queen 
Bess! ” and the English answered with a “ Hurrah! ” which rent the 
welkin. 

Another moment, and the gulf had swallowed his victim, and the 


884 


Westward Ho i 

poop, and him; and nothing remained of the Madre Dolorosa but a 
few floating spars and struggling wretches, while a great awe fell upon 
all men, and a solemn silence, broken only by the cry 

‘ ‘ Of some strong swimmer in his agony. ’ ’ 

And then, suddenly collecting themselves, as men awakened from a 
dream, half a dozen desperate gallants, reckless of sharks and eddies, 
leaped overboard, swam toward the flag, and towed it alongside in 
triumph. 

“Ah!” said Salvation Yeo, as he helped the trophy up over the 
side; “ ah! it was not for nothing that we found poor Michael! He 
was always a good comrade — nigh as good a one as William Penberthy 
of Marazion, whom the Lord grant I meet in bliss ! And now, then, 
my masters, shall we inshore again, and burn La Guayra? ” 

“Art thou never glutted with Spanish blood, thou old wolf? ” asked 
Will Cary. 

“ Never, sir,” answered Yeo. 

“ To St. Yago be it,” said Amyas, “ if we can get there: but — God 
help us ! ” 

And he looked round sadly enough; while no one needed that he 
should finish his sentence, or explain his “ but.” 

The foremast was gone, the main-yard sprung, the rigging hanging 
in elf-locks, the hull shot through and through in twenty places, the 
deck strewn with the bodies of nine good men, beside sixteen wounded 
down below; while the pitiless sun, right above their heads, poured 
down a flood of fire upon a sea of glass. 

And it would have been well if faintness and weariness had been 
all that was the matter; but now that the excitement was over, the 
collapse came; and the men sat down listlessly and sulkily by twos and 
threes upon the deck, starting and wincing when they heard some poor 
fellow below cry out under the surgeon’s knife; or murmuring to each 
other that all was lost. Drew tried in vain to rouse them, telling them 
that all depended on rigging a jury-mast forward as soon as possible. 
They answered only by growls; and at last broke into open reproaches. 
Even Will Cary’s volatile nature, which had kept him up during the 
fight, gave way, when Yeo and the carpenter came aft, and told 
Amyas in a low voice: 

“ We are hit somewhere forward, below the water-line, sir. She 
leaks a terrible deal, and the Lord will not vouchsafe to us to lay our 
hands on the place, for all our searching.” 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs 385 

“ What are we to do now, Amyas, in the devil’s name? ” asked Cary, 
peevishly. 

“ What are we to do, in God’s name, rather,” answered Amyas, in 
a low voice. “ Will, Will, what did God make you a gentleman for, 
but to know better than those poor fickle fellows forward, who blow 
hot and cold at every change of weather! ” 

“ I wish you’d come forward and speak to them, sir,” said Yeo, who 
had overheard the last words, “ or we shall get nought done.” 

Amyas went forward instantly. 

. “Now then, my brave lads, what’s the matter here, that you are all 
sitting on your tails like monkeys? ” 

“ Ugh? ” grunts one. “ Don’t you think our day’s work lias been 
long enough yet. Captain? ” 

“ You don’t want us to go in to La Guayra again, sir? There are 
enough of us thrown away already, I reckon, about that wench 
there.” 

“ Best sit here, and sink quietly. There’s no getting home again, 
that’s plain.” 

“ Why were we brought out here to be killed? ” 

“ For shame, men! ” cries Yeo; “ you’re no better than a set of stiff- 
necked Hebrew J ews, murmuring against Moses the very minute after 
the Lord has delivered you from the Egyptians.” 

Now I do not wish to set Amyas tip as a perfect man; for he had 
his faults, like every one else; nor as better, thank God, than many and 
many a brave and virtuous captain in her Majesty’s service at this very 
day: but certainly, he behaved admirably under that trial. Drake had 
trained him, as he trained many another excellent officer, to be as stout 
in discipline, and as dogged of purpose, as he himself was : but he had 
trained him, also, to feel with and for his men, to make allowances for 
them, and to keep his temper with them, as he did this day. True, he 
had seen Drake in a rage; he had seen him hang one man for a mutiny 
(and that man his dearest friend), and threaten to hang thirty more; 
but Amyas remembered well that that explosion took place when hav- 
ing, as Drake said publicly himself, “ taken in hand that I know not 
in the world how to go through with; it passeth my capacity; it hath 
even bereaved me of my wits to think of it,” . . . and having 

“ now set together by the ears three mighty princes, Her Majesty and 
the kings of Spain and Portugal,” he found his whole voyage ready to 
come to nought, “ by mutinies and discords, controversy between the 
sailors and gentlemen, and stomaching between the gentlemen and 


386 


Westward Ho I 

sailors.” “ But, my masters ” (quoth the self-trained hero, and 
Amyas never forgot his words) , “ I must have it left; for I must have 
the gentlemen to haul and draw with the mariner, and the mariner 
with the gentlemen. I would like to know him that would refuse to 
set his hand to a rope! ” 

And now Amyas’s conscience smote him (and his simple and pious 
soul took the loss of his brother as God’s verdict on his conduct), 
because he had set his own private affection, even his own private re- 
venge, before the safety of his ship’s company, and the good of his 
country. 

“Ah,” said he to himself, as he listened to his men’s reproaches, “ if 
I had been thinking, like a loyal soldier, of serving my Queen, and 
crippling the Spaniard, I should have taken that great bark three days 
ago, and in it the very man I sought ! ” 

So “ choking down his old man,” as Yeo used to say, he made an- 
swer cheerfully: 

“ Pooh ! pooh ! brave lads ! For shame, for shame ! You were lions 
half an hour ago; you are not surely turned sheep already! Why, but 
yesterday evening you were grumbling because I would not run in and 
fight those three ships under the batteries of La Guayra, and now you 
think it too much to have fought them fairly out at sea? What has 
happened but the chances of war, which might have happened any- 
where? Nothing venture, nothing win; and nobody goes birdnesting 
without a fall at times. If any one wants to be safe in this life, he’d 
best stay at home and keep his bed ; though even there, who knows but 
the roof might fall through on him? ” 

“Ah, it’s all very well for you, Captain,” said some grumbling 
younker, with a vague notion that Amyas must be better off than he, 
because he was a gentleman. Amyas’s blood rose. 

“ Yes, sirrah! it is very well for me, as long as God is with me: but 
He is with every man in this ship, I would have you to know, as much 
as He is with me. Do you fancy that I have nothing to lose? I who 
have adventured in this voyage all I am worth, and more; who, if I 
fail, must return to beggary and scorn? And if I have ventured 
rashly, sinfully, if you will, the lives of any of you in my own private 
quarrel, am I not punished? Have I not lost ? ” 

His voice trembled and stopped there, but he recovered himself in 
a moment. 

“ Pish! I can’t stand here chattering. Carpenter! an axe! and help 
me to cast these spars loose. Get out of my way, there ! lumbering the 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs 3 87 

scuppers up like so many moulting fowls! Here, all old friends, lend 
a hand! Pelican's men, stand by your captain! Did we sail round 
the world for nothing? ” 

This last appeal struck home, and up leaped half a dozen of the old 
Pelicans, and set to work at his side manfully to rig the jury- 
mast. 

“ Come along ! 99 cried Cary, to the malcontents; “ we’re raw long- 
shore fellows, but we won’t be outdone by any old sea-dog of them all.” 
And setting to work himself, he was soon followed by one and another, 
till order and work went on well enough. 

“And where are we going, when the mast’s up?” shouted some 
saucy hand from behind. 

“ Where you daren’t follow us alone by yourself, so you had better 
keep us company,” replied Yeo. 

“ I’ll tell you where we are going, lads,” said Amyas, rising from his 
work. “ Like it or leave it as you will, I have no secrets from my crew. 
We are going inshore there to find a harbor, and careen the ship.” 

There was a start and a murmur. 

“ Inshore? Into the Spaniards’ mouths? ” 

“ All in the Inquisition in a week’s time.” 

“ Better stay here, and be drowned.” 

“ You’re right in that last,” shouts Cary. “ That’s the right death 
for blind puppies. Look you! I don’t know in the least where we 
are, and I hardly know stem from stern aboard ship; and the captain 
may be right or wrong — that’s nothing to me ; but this I know, that I 
am a soldier, and will obey orders; and where he goes, I go; and who- 
soever hinders me, must walk up my sword to do it.” 

Amyas pressed Cary’s hand, and then, — 

“And here’s my broadside next, men. I’ll go nowhere, and do 
nothing without the advice of Salvation Yeo and Robert Drew; and if 
any man in the ship knows better than these two, let him up, and we’ll 
give him a hearing. Eh, Pelicans? ” 

There was a grunt of approbation from the Pelicans; and Amyas 
returned to the charge. 

“ We have five shot between wind and water, and one somewhere 
below. Can we face a gale of wind in that state, or can we not? ” 

Silence. 

“ Can we get home with a leak in our bottom? ” 

Silence. 

“ Then what can we do but run inshore, and take our chance? 


388 


Westward Ho ! 

Speak! It’s a coward’s trick to do nothing because what we must do 
is not pleasant. Will you be like children, that would sooner die than 
take nasty physic, or will you not? ” 

Silence still. 

“ Come along, now! Here’s the wind again round with the sun, 
and up to the northwest. In with her! ” 

Sulkily enough, but unable to deny the necessity, the men set to 
work, and the vessel’s head was put toward the land; but when she 
began to slip through the water, the leak increased so fast that they 
were kept hard at work at the pumps for the rest of the afternoon. 

The current had by this time brought them abreast of the bay of 
Higuerote; and, luckily for them, safe out of the short heavy swell 
which it causes round Cape Codera. Looking inland, they had now to 
the southwest that noble headland, backed by the Carracca mountains, 
range on range, up to the Silla and the Neguater; while, right ahead 
of them to the south, the shore sank suddenly into a low line of man- 
grove-wood, backed by primaeval forest. As they ran inward, all eyes 
were strained greedily to find some opening in the mangrove belt : but 
none was to be seen for some time. The lead was kept going; and 
every fresh heave announced shallower water. 

“We shall have very shoal work off those mangroves, Yeo,” said 
Amyas ; “ I doubt whether we shall do aught now, unless we find a 
river’s mouth.” 

“ If the Lord thinks a river good for us, sir, He’ll show us one.” So 
on they went, keeping a southeast course, and at last an opening in the 
mangrove belt was hailed with a cheer from the older hands, though 
the majority shrugged their shoulders, as men going open-eyed to 
destruction. 

Off the mouth they sent in Drew and Cary with a boat, and watched 
anxiously for an hour. The boat returned with a good report of two 
fathoms of water over the bar, impenetrable forests for two miles up, 
the river sixty yards broad, and no sign of man. The river’s banks 
were soft and sloping mud, fit for careening. 

“ Safe quarters, sir,” said Yeo privately, “ as far as Spaniards go. 

I hope in God it may be as safe from calentures and fevers.” 

“ Beggars must not be choosers,” said Amyas. So in they went. 

They towed the ship up about half a mile to a point where she could 
not be seen from the seaward; and there moored her to the mangrove- 
stems. Amyas ordered a boat out, and went up the river himself to 
reconnoitre. He rowed some three miles, till the river narrowed sud- 


Bloodhounds and Mastiffs 889 

denly, and was all but covered in by the interlacing boughs of mighty 
trees. There was no sign that man had been there since the making 
of the world. 

He dropped down the stream again, thoughtfully and sadly. How 
many years ago was it that he passed this river’s mouth? Three days. 
And yet how much had passed in them ! Don Guzman found and lost 
— Rose found and lost — a great victory gained, and yet lost — perhaps 
his ship lost — above all, his brother lost. 

Lost! O God, how should he find his brother? 

Some strange bird out of the woods made mournful answer — 
“ Never, never, never! ” 

How should he face his mother? 

“ Never, never, never! ” Availed the bird again; and Amyas smiled 
bitterly, and said “ Never! ” likeAvise. 

The night mist began to steam and wreath upon the foul beer- 
colored stream. The loathy floor of liquid mud lay bare beneath the 
mangrove forest. Upon the endless Aveb of interarching roots great 
purple crabs Avere craAvling up and down. They Avould have supped 
Avith pleasure upon Amyas’s corpse; perhaps they might sup on him 
after all; for a heavy sickening graveyard smell made his heart sink 
Avithin him, and his stomach heaA^e; and his weary body, and more 
weary soul, gaA^e themselves up helplessly to the depressing influence 
of that doleful place. The black bank of dingy leathern leaves above 
his head, the endless labyrinth of stems and withes (for every bough 
had loAvered its OAvn living cord, to take fresh hold of the foul soil 
beloAv) ; the Aveb of roots, Avhich stretched away inland till it Avas lost 
in the shades of evening — all seemed one horrid complicated trap for 
him and his ; and even AAdiere, here and there, he passed the mouth of a 
lagoon, there Avas no opening, no relief — nothing but the dark ring of 
mangroves, and here and there an isolated group of large and small, 
parents and children, breeding and spreading, as if in hideous haste to 
choke out air and sky. Wailing sadly, sad-colored mangrove-hens ran 
off across the mud into the dreary dark. The hoarse night-raven, hid 
among the roots, startled the voyagers Avith a sudden shout, and then 
all Avas again silent as a grave. The loathy alligators, lounging in the 
slime, lifted their horny eyelids lazily, and leered upon him as he passed 
with stupid savageness. Lines of tall herons stood dimly in the grow- 
ing gloom, like Avhite fantastic ghosts watching the passage of the 
doomed boat. All was foul, sullen, Aveird as Avitches’ dream. If 
Amyas had seen a creAV of skeletons glide doAvn the stream behind him, 


390 


Westward Ho 8 

with Satan standing at the helm, he would have scarcely been sur- 
prised. What fitter craft could haunt that Stygian flood? 

That night every man of the boat's crew, save Amyas, was down 
with raging fever; before ten the next morning, five more men were 
taken, and others sickening fast. 



CHAPTER XXI 

How M ? ey fooK H?e Communion under the 
tree at Higuerote* 

* ‘ Follow thee ? Follow thee? Wha wad na follow thee? 

Lang hast thou looed and trusted us fairly/ ’ 

Amyas would have certainly taken the yellow fever, but for one 
reason, which he himself gave to Cary. He had no time to be sick 
while his men were sick; a valid and sufficient reason (as many a noble 
soul in the Crimea has known too well), as long as the excitement of 
work is present: but too apt to fail the hero, and to let him sink into 
the pit which he has so often overleapt, the moment that his work is 
done. 

He called a council of war, or rather a sanitary commission, the 
next morning; for he was fairly at his wit’s end. The men were panic- 
stricken, ready to mutiny: Amyas told them that he could not see any 
possible good which could accrue to them by killing him, or — (for 
there were two sides to every question) — being killed by him; and then 
went below to consult. The doctor talked mere science, or nonscience, 
about humors, complexions, and animal spirits. Jack Brimblecombe, 
mere pulpit, about its being the visitation of God. Cary, mere de- 
spair, though he jested over it with a smile. Yeo, mere stoic fatalism, 
though he quoted Scripture to back the same. Drew, the master, had 
nothing to say. His “ business was to sail the ship, and not to cure 
calentures.” 

'Whereon, Amyas clutched his locks, according to custom; and at 
last broke forth — 

“ Doctor! a fig for your humors and complexions! Can you cure a 
man’s humors, or change his complexion? Can an Ethiopian change 
his skin, or a leopard his spots? Don’t shove off your ignorance on 
God, sir. I ask you what’s the reason of this sickness, and you don’t 
know. Jack Brimblecombe, don’t talk to me about God’s visitation; 


392 


Westward Ho ! 

this looks much more like the devil’s visitation, to my mind. We are 
doing God’s work, Sir John, and He is not likely to hinder us. So 
down with the devil, say I. Cary, laughing killed the cat, but it won’t 
cure a Christian. Yeo, when an angel tells me that it’s God’s will 
that we should all die like dogs in a ditch, I’ll call this God’s will: but 
not before. Drew, you say your business is to sail the ship; then sail 
her out of this infernal poison-trap, this very morning, if you can, 
which you can’t. The mischief’s in the air, and nowhere else. I felt 
it run through me coming down last night, and smelt it like any sewer : 
and if it was not in the air, why was my boat’s crew taken first, tell 
me that? ” 

There was no answer. 

“ Then I’ll tell you why they were taken first: because the mist, 
when we came through it, only rose five or six feet above the stream, 
and we were in it, while you on board were above it. And those that 
were taken on board this morning, every one of them, slept on the 
main-deck, and every one of them, too, was in fear of the fever, whereby 
I judge two things, — Keep as high as you can, and fear nothing but 
God, and we’re all safe yet.” 

“ But the fog was up to our round-tops at sunrise this morning,” 
said Cary. 

“ I know it: but we who were on the half-deck were not in it so long 
as those below, and that may have made the difference, let alone our 
having free air. Beside, I suspect the heat in the evening draws the 
poison out more, and that when it gets cold toward morning, the venom 
of it goes off somehow.” 

How it went off Amyas could not tell (right in his facts as he was) , 
for nobody on earth knew, I suppose, at that day; and it was not till 
nearly two centuries of fatal experience, that the settlers in America 
discovered the simple laws of these epidemics which now every child 
knows, or ought to know. But common sense was on his side; and 
Yeo rose and spoke, — 

“As I have said before, many a time, the Lord has sent us a very 
young Daniel for judge. I remember now to have heard the Span- 
iards say, how these calentures lay always in the low ground, and never 
came more than a few hundred feet above the sea.” 

“ Let us go up those few hundred feet, then.” 

Every man looked at Amyas, and then at his neighbor. 

“ Gentlemen, ‘ Look the devil straight in the face, if you would hit 
him in the right place.’ We cannot get the ship to sea as she is; and 


The Communion 393 

if we could, we cannot go home empty-handed ; and we surely cannot 
stay here to die of fever. — We must leave the ship and go inland. ,, 

“ Inland? ” answered every voice but Yeo’s. 

“ Up those hundred feet which Yeo talks of. Up to the mountains; 
stockade a camp, and get our sick and provisions thither.” — 

“And what next? ” 

“And when we are recruited, march over the mountains, and sur- 
prise St. Yago de Leon.” 

Cary swore a great oath. “Amyas! you are a daring fellow! ” 

“ Not a bit. It’s the plain path of prudence.” 

“ So it is, sir,” said old Yeo, “ and I follow you in it.” 

“ And so do I,” squeaked Jack Brimblecombe. 

“ Nay, then, Jack, thou shalt not outrun me. So I say yes, too,” 
quoth Cary. 

“Mr. Drew?” 

“At your service, sir, to live or die. I know nought about stockad- 
ing; but Sir Francis would have given the same council, I verily be- 
lieve, if he had been in your place.” 

“ Then tell the men that we start in an hour’s time. Win over the 
Pelicans, Yeo and Drew; and the rest must follow, like sheep over a 
hedge.” 

The Pelicans, and the liberated galley-slaves, joined the project at 
once: but the rest gave Amyas a stormy hour. The great question 
was, where were the hills? In that dense mangrove thicket they could 
not see fifty yards before them. 

“ The hills are not three miles to the southwest of you at this mo- 
ment,” said Amyas. “ I marked every shoulder of them as we ran in.” 

“ I suppose you meant to take us there? ” 

The question set a light to a train — and angry suspicions were blaz- 
ing up one after another, but Amyas silenced them with a countermine. 

“ Fools! if I had not wit enow to look ahead a little farther than 
you do, where would you be? Are you mad as well as reckless, to rise 
against your own Captain because he has two strings to his bow? Go 
my way, I say, or, as I live, I’ll blow up the ship and every soul on 
board, and save you the pain of rotting here by inches.” 

The men knew that Amyas never said what he did not intend to do; 
not that Amyas intended to do this, because he knew that the threat 
would be enough. So they agreed to go ; and were reassured by seeing 
that the old Pelican's men turned to the work heartily and cheerfully. 

There is no use keeping the reader for five or six weary hours, under 


894 


Westward Ho 2 

a broiling (or rather stewing) sun, stumbling over mangrove roots, 
hewing his way through thorny thickets, dragging sick men and pro- 
visions up mountain steeps, amid disappointment, fatigue, .murmurs, 
curses, snakes, mosquitoes, false alarms of Spaniards, and every mis- 
ery, save cold, which flesh is heir to. Suffice it that by sunset that 
evening they had gained a level spot, a full thousand feet above the sea, 
backed by an inaccessible cliff which formed the upper shoulder of a 
mighty mountain, defended below by steep wooded slopes, and needing 
but the felling of a few trees to make it impregnable. 

Amyas settled the sick under the arched roots of an enormous cot- 
tonwood tree, and made a second journey to the ship, to bring up ham- 
mocks and blankets for them; while Yeo’s wisdom and courage were 
of inestimable value. He, as pioneer, had found the little brook up 
which they forced their way; he had encouraged them to climb the cliffs 
over which it fell, arguing rightly that on its course they were sure to 
find some ground fit for encampment within the reach of water; he 
had supported Amyas, when again and again the weary crew entreated 
to be dragged no farther, and had gone back again a dozen times to 
cheer them upward; while Cary, who brought up the rear, bullied and 
jeered on the stragglers who sat down and refused to move, drove back 
at the sword’s point more than one who was beating a retreat, carried 
their burdens for them, sang them songs on the halt; in all things ap- 
proving himself the gallant and hopeful soul which he had always been; 
till Amyas, beside himself with joy at finding that the two men on 
whom he had counted most were utterly worthy of his trust, went so 
far as to whisper to them both, in confidence, that very night — 

“ Cortes burnt his ships when he landed. Why should not we? ” 

Yeo leaped upright; and then sat down again, and whispered: 

“ Do you say that. Captain? ’Tis from above then, that’s certain; 
for it’s been hanging on my mind too all day.” 

“ There’s no hurry,” quoth Amyas; “ we must clear her out first, 
you know,” while Cary sat silent and musing. Amyas had evidently 
more schemes in his head than he chose to tell. 

The men were too tired that evening to do much: but ere the sun 
rose next morning Amyas had them hard at work fortifying their posi- 
tion. It was, as I said, strong enough by nature; for though it was 
commanded by high cliffs on three sides, yet there was no chance of an 
enemy coming over the enormous mountain range behind them, and 
still less chance that, if he came, he would discover them through the 
dense mass of trees which crowned the cliff, and clothed the hills for a 


Tfte Communion 395 

thousand feet above. The attack, if it took place, would come from 
below; and against that Amyas guarded by felling the smaller trees, 
and laying them with their boughs outward over the crest of the slope, 
thus forming an abatis (as every one who has shot in thick cover knows 
to his cost) warranted to bring up in two steps, horse, dog, or man. 
r lhe trunks were sawed into logs, laid lengthwise, and steadied by 
stakes and mould ; and three or four hours’ hard work finished a stock- 
ade which would defy anything but artillery. The work done, Amyas 
scrambled up into the boughs of the enormous ceiba-tree, and there 
sat inspecting his own handiwork, looking out far and wide over the 
forest-covered plains and the blue sea beyond, and thinking, in his 
simple straightforward way, of what was to be done next. 

To stay there long was impossible; to avenge himself upon La 
Guayra was impossible ; to go until he had found out whether Frank 
was alive or dead seemed at first equally impossible. But were Brim- 
blecombe, Cary, and those eighty men, to be sacrificed a second time 
to his private interest? Amyas wept with rage, and then wept again 
with earnest, honest prayer, before he could make up his mind. But 
he made it up. There were a hundred chances to one that Frank was 
dead; and if not, he was equally past their help; for he was — Amyas 
knew that too well — by this time in the hands of the Inquisition. Who 
could lift him from that pit? Not Amyas, at least! And crying 
aloud in his agony, “ God help him ! for I cannot ! ” Amyas made up 
his mind to move. But whither? Many an hour he thought and 
thought alone, there in his airy nest; and at last he went down, calm 
and cheerful, and drew Cary and Yeo aside. They could not, he said, 
refit the ship without dying of fever during the process; an assertion 
which neither of his hearers was bold enough to deny. Even if they 
refitted her, they would be pretty certain to have to fight the Spaniards 
again; for it was impossible to doubt the Indian’s story, that they had 
been forewarned of the Rose’s coming, or to doubt, either, that Eustace 
had been the traitor. 

“ Let us try St. Yago, then; sack it, come down on La Guayra in 
the rear, take a ship there, and so get home.” 

“ Nay, Will. If they have strengthened themselves against us at 
La Guayra, where they had little to lose, surely they have done so at 
St. Yago, where they have much. I hear the town is large, though 
new; and besides, how can we get over these mountains without a 
guide? ” 

“ Or witb one? ” said Cary, with a sigh, looking up at the vast walls 


396 


Westward Ho ! 

of wood and rock which rose range on range for miles. “ But it is 
strange to find you, at least, throwing cold water on a daring plot.” 

“ What if I had a still more daring one? Did you ever hear of the 
golden city of Manoa? ” 

Yeo laughed a grim but joyful laugh. “ I have, sir; and so have 
the old hands from the Pelican and the Jesus of JLubec , I doubt not.” 

“ So much the better ; 99 and Amyas began to tell Cary all which he 
had learned from the Spaniard, while Yeo capped every word thereof 
with rumors and traditions of his own gathering. Cary sat half 
aghast as the huge phantasmagoria unfolded itself before his dazzled 
eyes ; and at last, — 

“ So that was why you wanted to burn the ship! Well, after all, 
nobody needs me at home, and one less at table won’t be missed. So 
you want to play Cortes, eh? ” 

“ We shall never need to play Cortes (who was not such a bad fellow 
after all, Will) , because we shall have no such cannibal fiends’ tyranny 
to rid the earth of, as he had. And I trust we shall fear God enough 
not to play Pizarro.” 

So the conversation dropped for the time, but none of them forgot it. 

In that mountain-nook the party spent some ten days and more. 
Several of the sick men died, some from the fever superadded to their 
wounds; some, probably, from having been bled by the surgeon; the 
others mended steadily, by the help of certain herbs which Yeo ad- 
ministered, much to the disgust of the doctor, who, of course, wanted 
to bleed the poor fellows all round, and was all but mutinous when 
Amyas stayed his hand. In the meanwhile, by dint of daily trips to 
the ship, provisions were plentiful enough, — beside the racoons, mon- 
keys, and other small animals, which Yeo and the veterans of Haw- 
kins’ crew knew how to catch, and the fruit and vegetables, above all, 
the delicious mountain cabbage of the Areca palm, and the fresh milk 
of the cow-tree, which they brought in daily, paying well thereby for 
the hospitality they received. 

All day long a careful watch was kept among the branches of the 
mighty ceiba-tree. And what a tree that was! The hugest English 
oak would have seemed a stunted bush beside it. Borne up on roots, 
or rather walls, of twisted board, some twelve feet high, between which 
the whole crew, their ammunitions, and provisions, were housed room- 
ily, rose the enormous trunk full forty feet in girth, towering like some 
tall lighthouse, smooth for a hundred feet, then crowned with boughs, 
each of which was a stately tree, whose topmost twigs were full two 


The Communion 397 

hundred and fifty feet from the ground. And yet it was easy for the 
sailors to ascend; so many natural ropes had kind Nature lowered for 
their use, in the smooth lianes which hung to the very earth, often 
without a knot or leaf. Once in the tree, you were within a new world, 
suspended between heaven and earth, and as Cary said, no wonder if, 
like Jack when he climbed the magic bean-stalk, you had found a 
castle, a giant, and a few acres of well-stocked park, packed away 
somewhere amid that labyrinth of timber. Flower-gardens at least 
were there in plenty; for every limb was covered with pendent cac- 
tuses, gorgeous orchises, and wild pines; and while one-half the tree 
was clothed in rich foliage, the other half, utterly leafless, bore on every 
twig brilliant yellow flowers, around which humming-birds whirred all 
day long. Parrots peeped in and out of every cranny, while, within 
the airy woodland, brilliant lizards basked like living gems upon the 
bark, gaudy finches flitted and chirruped, butterflies of every size and 
color hovered over the topmost twigs, innumerable insects hummed 
from morn till eve; and when the sun went down, tree-toads came out 
to snore and croak till dawn. There was more life round that one tree 
than in a whole square mile of English soil. 

And Amyas, as he lounged among the branches, felt at moments as 
if he would be content to stay there forever, and feed his eyes and ears 
with all its wonders — and then started sighing from his dream, as he 
recollected that a few days must bring the foe upon them, and force 
him to decide upon some scheme at which the bravest heart might falter 
without shame. So there he sat (for he often took the scout’s place 
himself), looking out over the fantastic tropic forest at his feet, and 
the flat mangrove-swamps below, and the white sheet of foam-flecked 
blue; and yet no sail appeared; and the men, as their fear of fever sub- 
sided, began to ask when they would go down and refit the ship, and 
Amyas put them off as best he could, till one noon he saw slipping 
along the shore from the westward, a large ship under easy sail, and 
recognized in her, or thought he did so, the ship which they had passed 
upon their way. 

If it was she, she must have run past them to La Guayra in the 
night, and have now returned, perhaps, to search for them along the 
coast. 

She crept along slowly. He was in hopes that she might pass the 
river’s mouth : but no. She lay-to close to the shore ; and, after a while, 
Amyas saw two boats pull in from her, and vanish behind the man- 
groves. 


398 


Westward Ho ! 

Sliding down a liane, he told what he had seen. The men, tired of 
inactivity, received the news with a shout of joy, and set to work to 
make all ready for their guests. Four brass swivels, which they had 
brought up, were mounted, fixed in logs, so as to command the path; 
the musqueteers and archers clustered round them with their tackle 
ready, and half a dozen good marksmen volunteered into the cotton- 
tree with their arquebuses, as a post whence “ a man might have very 
pretty shooting.” Prayers followed as a matter of course, and dinner 
as a matter of course also; but two weary hours passed before there 
was any sign of the Spaniards. 

Presently a wreath of white smoke curled up from the swamp, and 
then the report of a caliver. Then, amid the growls of the English, 
the Spanish flag ran up above the trees, and floated — horrible to be- 
hold — at the mast-head of the Rose. They were signaling the ship for 
more hands; and, in effect, a third boat soon pushed off and vanished 
into the forest. 

Another hour, during which the men had thoroughly lost their tem- 
per, but not their hearts, by waiting; and talked so loud, and strode up 
and down so wildly, that Amyas had to warn them that there was no 
need to betray themselves; that the Spaniards might not find them 
after all; that they might pass the stockade close without seeing it; 
that, unless they hit off the track at once, they would probably return to 
their ship for the present; and exacted a promise from them that they 
would be perfectly silent till he gave the word to fire. 

Which wise commands had scarcely passed his lips, when, in the 
path below, glanced the head-piece of a Spanish soldier, and then an- 
other and another. 

“ Fools! ” whispered Amyas to Cary; “ they are coming up in single 
file, rushing on their own death. Lie close, men! ” 

The path was so narrow that two could seldom come up abreast, and 
so steep that the enemy had much ado to struggle and stumble upward. 
The men seemed half unwilling to proceed, and hung back more than 
once; but Amyas could hear an authoritative voice behind, and pres- 
ently there emerged to the front, sword in hand, a figure at which 
Amyas and Cary both started. 

“ Is it he? ” 

“ Surely I know those legs among a thousand, though they are in 
armor.” 

“It is my turn for him, now, Cary, remember! Silence, silence, 
men!” 


399 


The Communion 

The Spaniards seemed to feel that they were leading a forlorn hope. 
Don Guzman (for there was little doubt that it was he) had much ado 
to get them on at all. 

“ Jhe fellows have heard how gently we handled the Guayra squad- 
ron,” whispers Cary, “ and have no wish to become fellow-martyrs 
with the captain of the Madre Dolorosa " 

At last the Spaniards get up the steep slope to within forty yards 
of the stockade, and pause, suspecting a trap, and puzzled by the com- 
plete silence. Amyas leaps on the top of it, a white flag in his hand; 
but his heart beats so fiercely at the sight of that hated figure, that he 
can hardly get out the words, — 

“ Don Guzman, the quarrel is between you and me, not between 
your men and mine. I would have sent in a challenge to you at La 
Guayra, but you were away; I challenge you now to single combat.” 

“ Lutheran dog, I have a halter for you, but no sword! As you 
served us as Smerwick, we will serve you now. Pirate and ravisher: 
you and yours shall share Oxenham’s fate, as you have copied his 
crimes, and learn what it is to set foot unbidden on the dominions of 
the King of Spain.” 

“ The devil take you and the King of Spain together! ” shouts 
Amyas, laughing loudly. “ This ground belongs to him no more than 
it does to me, but to the Queen Elizabeth, in whose name I have taken 
as lawful possession of it as you ever did of Carraccas. Fire, men! 
and God defend the right! ” 

Both parties obeyed the order; Amyas dropped down behind the 
stockade in time to let a caliver bullet whistle over his head; and the 
Spaniards recoiled as the narrow face of the stockade burst into one 
blaze of musketry and swivels, raking their long array from front to 
rear. 

The front ranks fell over each other in heaps; the rear ones turned 
and ran; overtaken, nevertheless, by the English bullets and arrows, 
which tumbled them headlong down the steep path. 

“ Out, men, and charge them. See! the Don is running like the 
rest! ” And scrambling over the abatis, Amyas and about thirty fol- 
lowed them fast; for he had hope of learning from some prisoner his 
brother’s fate. 

Amyas was unjust in his last words. Don Guzman, as if by mir- 
acle, had been only slightly wounded; and seeing his men run, had 
rushed back and tried to rally them, but was borne away by the fugi- 
tives. 


400 


Westward Ho ! 

However, the Spaniards were out of sight among the thick bushes 
before the English could overtake them; and Amyas, afraid lest they 
should rally and surround his small party, withdrew sorely against his 
will, and found in the pathway fourteen Spaniards, but all dead. For 
one of the wounded, with more courage than wisdom, had fired on the 
English as he lay; and Amyas’s men, whose blood was maddened both 
by their desperate situation, and the frightful stories of the rescued 
galley-slaves, had killed them all before their captain could stop them. 

“Are you mad? ” cries Amyas, as he strikes up one fellow’s sword. 
“ Will you kill an Indian? ” 

And he drags out of the bushes an Indian lad of sixteen, who, 
slightly wounded, is crawling away like a copper snake along the 
ground. 

“ The black vermin has sent an arrow through my leg; and poisoned 
too, most like.” 

“ God grant not: but an Indian is worth his weight in gold to us 
now,” said Amyas, tucking his prize under his arm like a bundle. The 
lad, as soon as he saw there was no escape, resigned himself to his fate 
with true Indian stoicism, was brought in, and treated kindly enough, 
but refused to eat. For which, after much questioning, he gave as a 
reason, that he would make them kill him at once; for fat him they 
should not; and gradually gave them to understand that the English 
always (so at least the Spaniards said) fatted and ate their prisoners 
like the Caribs ; and till he saw them go out and bury the bodies of the 
Spaniards, nothing would persuade him that the corpses were not to be 
cooked for supper. 

However, kind words, kind looks, and the present of that ines- 
timable treasure — a knife, brought him to reason; and he told Amyas 
that he belonged to a Spaniard who had an “ encomienda ” of Indians 
some fifteen miles to the southwest; that he had fled from his master, 
and lived by hunting for some months past; and having seen the ship 
where she lay moored, and boarded her in hope of plunder, had been 
surprised therein by the Spaniards, and forced by threats to go with 
them as a guide in their search for the English. But now came a part 
of his story which filled the soul of Amyas with delight. He was an 
Indian of the Llanos, or great savannahs which lay to the southward 
beyond the mountains, and had actually been upon the Orinoco. He 
had been stolen as a boy by some Spaniards, who had gone down (as 
was the fashion of the Jesuits even as late as 1790) for the pious pur- 
pose of converting the savages by the simple process of catching, bap- 


401 


The Coirnimniot) 

tizing, and making servants of those whom they could carry off, and 
murdering those who resisted their gentle method of salvation. Did 
he know the way back again? Who could ask such a question of an 
Indian? And the lad’s black eyes flashed fire, as Amyas offered him 
liberty and iron enough for a dozen Indians, if he would lead them 
through the passes of the mountains, and southward to the mighty 
river, where lay their golden hopes. Hernando de Serpa, Amyas 
knew, had tried the same course, which was supposed to be about one 
hundred and twenty leagues, and failed, being overthrown utterly by 
the Wikiri Indians; but Amyas knew enough of the Spaniards’ brutal 
method of treating those Indians, to be pretty sure that they had 
brought that catastrophe upon themselves, and that he might avoid it 
well enough by that common justice and mercy toward the savages 
which he had learned from his incomparable tutor, Francis Drake. 

Now was the time to speak; and, assembling his men around him, 
Amyas opened his whole heart, simply and manfully. This was their 
only hope of safety. Some of them had murmured that they should 
perish like John Oxenham’s crew. This plan was rather the only way 
to avoid perishing like them. Don Guzman would certainly return to 
seek them; and not only he, but land-forces from St. Yago. Even if 
the stockade was not forced, they would be soon starved out; why not 
move at once, ere the Spaniards could return, and begin a blockade? 
As for taking St. Yago, it was impossible. The treasure would all be 
safely hidden, and the town well prepared to meet them. If they 
wanted gold and glory, they must seek it elsewhere. Neither was 
there any use in marching along the coast, and trying the ports: ships 
could outstrip them, and the country was already warned. There was 
but this one chance; and on it Amyas, the first and last time in his life, 
waxed eloquent, and set forth the glory of the enterprise, the service 
to the Queen, the salvation of heathens, and the certainty that, if 
successful, they should win honor and wealth, and everlasting fame, 
beyond that of Cortes or Pizarro, till the men, sulky at first, warmed 
every moment; and one old Pelican broke out with 

“ Yes, sir! we didn’t go round the world with you for nought; and 
watched your works and ways, which was always those of a gentleman, 
as you are,— who spoke a word for a poor fellow when he was in a 
scrape, and saw all you ought to see, and nought that you ought not. 
And we’ll follow you, sir, all alone to ourselves; and let those that 
know you worse follow after when they’re come to their right mind.” 

Man after man capped this brave speech; the minority, who, if they 


402 


Westward Ho i 

liked little to go, liked still less to be left behind, gave in their consent 
perforce; and, to make a long story short, Amyas conquered, and the 
plan was accepted. 

“ This,” said Amyas, “ is indeed the proudest day of my life! I 
have lost one brother, but I have gained fourscore. God do so to me, 
and more also, if I do not deal with you according to the trust which 
you have put in me this day! ” 

We, I suppose, are to believe that we have a right to laugh at 
Amyas’s scheme as frantic and chimerical. It is easy to amuse our- 
selves with the premises, after the conclusion has been found for us. 
We know, now, that he was mistaken: but we have not discovered his 
mistake for ourselves, and have no right to plume ourselves on other 
men’s discoveries. Had we lived in Amyas’s days, we should have be- 
longed either to the many wise men who believed as he did, or to the 
many foolish men, who not only sneered at the story of Manoa, but at 
a hundred other stories, which we now know to be true. Columbus 
was laughed at: but he found a new world, nevertheless. Cortes was 
laughed at: but he found Mexico. Pizarro: but he found Peru. I 
ask any fair reader of those two charming books, Mr. Prescott’s “ Con- 
quest of Mexico ” and his “ Conquest of Peru,” whether the true 
wonders in them described do not outdo all the false wonders of 
Manoa. 

But what reason was there to think them false? One quarter, per- 
haps, of America had been explored, and yet in that quarter two 
empires had been already found, in a state of mechanical, military, 
and agricultural civilization superior, in many things, to any nation of 
Europe. Was it not most rational to suppose that in the remaining 
three-quarters similar empires existed? If a second Mexico had been 
discovered in the mountains of Parima, and a second Pern in those of 
Brazil, what right would any man have had to wonder? As for the 
gold legends, nothing was told of Manoa which had not been seen in 
Peru and Mexico by the bodily eyes of men then living. Why should 
not the rocks of Guiana have been as full of the precious metals (we 
do not know yet that they are not) as the rocks of Peru and Mexico 
were known to be? Even the details of the story, its standing on a 
lake, for instance, bore a probability with them. Mexico actually 
stood in the centre of a lake — why should not Manoa? The Peruvian 
worship centred round a sacred lake — why not that of Manoa? Pi- 
zarro and Cortes, again, were led on to their desperate enterprises by 
the sight of small quantities of gold among savages, who told them of a 


403 


The Comsimmori 

civilized gold-country near at hand; and they found that those savages 
spoke truth. Why was the unanimous report of the Carib tribes of 
the Orinoco to be disbelieved, when they told a similar tale? Sir Rich- 
ard Schomburgk’s admirable preface to Raleigh’s Guiana proves, 
surely, that the Indians themselves were deceived, as well as deceivers. 
It was known, again, that vast quantities of the Peruvian treasure had 
been concealed by the priests, and that members of the Inca family 
had fled across the Andes, and held out against the Spaniards. Barely 
fifty years had elapsed since then; — what more probable than that this 
remnant of the Peruvian dynasty and treasure still existed? Even the 
story of the Amazons, though it may serve Hume as a point for his 
ungenerous and untruthful attempt to make Raleigh out either fool or 
villain, has come from Spaniards, who had with their own eyes seen 
the Indian women fighting by their husbands’ sides, and from Indians, 
who asserted the existence of an Amazonian tribe. What right had 
Amyas, or any man, to disbelieve the story? The existence of the 
Amazons in ancient Asia, and of their intercourse with Alexander the 
Great, was then an accredited part of history, which it would have been 
gratuitous impertinence to deny. And what if some stories connected 
these warlike women with the Emperor of Manoa, and the capital it- 
self? This generation ought surely to be the last to laugh at such a 
story, at least as long as the Amazonian guards of the king of Da- 
homey continue to outvie the men in that relentless ferocity, with which 
they have subdued every neighboring tribe, save the Christians of 
Abbeokuta. In this case, as in a hundred more, fact not only outdoes, 
but justifies imagination; and Amyas spoke common sense, when he 
said to his men that day — 

“ Let fools laugh and stay at home. Wise men dare and win. 
Saul went to look for his father’s asses, and found a kingdom; and 
Columbus, my men, was called a madman for only going to seek China, 
and never knew, they say, until his dying day, that he had found a 
whole new world instead of it. Find Manoa? God only, who made 
all things, knows what we may find beside! ” 

So underneath that giant ceiba-tree, those valiant men, reduced by 
battle and sickness to some eighty, swore a great oath, and kept that 
oath like men. To search for the golden city for two full years to 
come, whatever might befall; to stand to each other for weal or woe; to 
obey their officers to the death; to murmur privately against no man, 
but bring all complaints to a council of war; to use no profane oaths, 
but serve God daily with prayer; to take by violence from no man, 


404 


Westward Ho ! 

save from their natural enemies the Spaniards ; to be civil and merciful 
to all savages, and chaste and courteous to all women; to bring all 
booty and all food into the common stock, and observe to the utmost 
their faith with the adventurers who had fitted out the ship; and, 
finally, to march at sunrise the next morning toward the south, trust- 
ing in God to be their guide. 

“ It is a great oath, and a hard one,” said Brimblecombe; “ but God 
will give us strength to keep it.” And they knelt all together and 
received the Holy Communion, and then rose to pack provisions and 
ammunition, and lay down again to sleep and to dream that they were 
sailing home up Torridge stream — as Cavendish, returning from 
round the world, did actually sail home up Thames but five years after- 
ward — “ with mariners and soldiers clothed in silk, with sails of dam- 
ask, and topsails of cloth of gold, and the richest prize which ever was 
brought at one time unto English shores.” 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

The Cross stands upright in the southern sky. It is the middle of 
the night. Cary and Yeo glide silently up the hill and into the camp, 
and whisper to Amyas that they have done the deed. The sleepers are 
awakened, and the train sets forth. 

Upward and southward ever: but whither, who can tell? They 
hardly think of the whither; but go like sleep-walkers, shaken out of 
one land of dreams, only to find themselves in another and stranger 
one. All around is fantastic and unearthly; now each man starts as 
he sees the figures of his fellows, clothed from head to foot in golden 
filigree ; looks up, and sees the yellow moonlight through the fronds of 
the huge tree-ferns overhead, as through a cloud of glittering lace. 
Now they are hewing their way through a thicket of enormous flags; 
now through bamboos forty feet high; now they are stumbling over 
boulders, waist deep in cushions of club-moss ; now they are struggling 
through shrubberies of heaths and rhododendrons, and woolly incense- 
trees, where every leaf, as they brush past, dashes some fresh scent into 
their faces, and 

‘ ‘ The winds, with musky wing, 

About the eedarn alleys fling 
Nard and cassia’s balmy smells.” 

Now they open upon some craggy brow, from whence they can see 
far below an ocean of soft cloud, whose silver billows, girdled by the 
mountainsides, hide the lowland from their sight. And from beneath 


405 


The Communion 

the cloud strange voices rise; the screams of thousand night-birds, and 
wild howls, which they used at first to fancy were the cries of ravenous 
beasts, till they found them to proceed from nothing fiercer than an 
ape. But what is that deeper note, like a series of muffled explosions 
— arquebuses fired within some subterranean cavern, — the heavy pulse 
of which rolls up through the depths of the unseen forest? They hear 
it now for the first time, but they will hear it many a time again; and 
the Indian lad is hushed, and cowers close to them, and then takes 
heart, as he looks upon their swords and arquebuses; for that is the 
roar of the jaguar, “ seeking his meat from God.” 

But what is that glare away to the northward? The yellow moon is 
ringed with gay rainbows ; but that light is far too red to be the reflec- 
tion of any beams of hers. Now through the cloud rises a column of 
black and lurid smoke; the fog clears away right and left around it, 
and shows beneath, a mighty fire. 

The men look at each other with questioning eyes, each half suspect- 
ing, and yet not daring to confess their own suspicions; and Amyas 
whispers to Yeo — 

“ You took care to flood the poAvder? ” 

“ Ay, ay, sir, and to unload the ordnance too. No use in making 
a noise to tell the Spaniards our Avhereabouts.” 

Yes; that glare rises from the good ship Rose. Amyas, like Cortes 
of old, has burned his ship, and retreat is now impossible. Forward 
into the unknoAvn abyss of the New World, and God be Avith them as 
they go! 

The Indian knoAvs a cunning path: it winds along the highest ridges 
of the mountains; but the traveling is far more open and easy. 

They have passed the head of a valley Avhich leads doAvn to St. Yago. 
Beneath that long shining river of mist, Avhich ends at the foot of the 
great Silla, lies (so says the Indian lad) the rich capital of Venezuela; 
and beyond, the gold mines of Bos Teques and Baruta, Avhich first at- 
tracted the founder Diego de Losada; and many a longing eye is 
turned toAvard it as they pass the saddle at the valley head; but the 
attempt is hopeless, they turn again to the left, and so doAvn toAvard 
the rancho, taking care (so the prudent Amyas had commanded) to 
break doAvn, after crossing, the frail rope bridge Avhich spans each tor- 
rent and ravine. 

They are at the rancho long before daybreak, and ha\^e secured 
there, not only fourteen mules, but eight or nine Indians stolen from 
off the Llanos, like their guide, who are glad enough to escape from 


406 


Westward Ho \ 

their tyrants by taking service with them. And now southward and 
away, with lightened shoulders and hearts; for they are all but safe 
from pursuit. The broken bridges prevent the news of their raid 
reaching St. Yago until nightfall; and in the meanwhile, Don Guz- 
man returns to the river-mouth the next day to find the ship a black- 
ened wreck, and the camp empty; follows their trail over the hills till 
he is stopped by a broken bridge; surmounts that difficulty, and meets 
a second; his men are worn out with heat, and a little afraid of stum- 
bling on the heretic desperadoes, and he returns by land to St. Yago; 
and when he arrives there, has news from home which gives him other 
things to think of than following those mad Englishmen, who have 
vanished into the wilderness. “ What need, after all, to follow 
them?” asked the Spaniards of each other. “ Blinded by the devil 
whom they serve, they rush on in search of certain death, as many a 
larger company has before them, and they will find it; and will trouble 
La Guayra no more forever.” “ Lutheran dogs and enemies of God,” 
said Don Guzman to his soldiers, “ they will leave their bones to whiten 
on the Llanos, as may every heretic who sets foot on Spanish soil! ” 
Will they do so, Don Guzman? Or wilt thou and Amyas meet 
again upon a mightier battle-field, to learn a lesson which neither of 
you yet has learned? 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Inquisition ia the Indies. 

My next chapter is perhaps too sad; it shall be at least as short as I 
can make it; but it was needful to be written, that readers may judge 
fairly for themselves what sort of enemies the English nation had to 
face in those stern days. 

Three weeks have passed, and the scene is shifted to a long, low 
range of cells in a dark corridor in the city of Carthagena. The door 
of one is open ; and within stand two cloaked figures, one of whom we 
know. It is Eustace Leigh. The other is a familiar of the Holy 
Office. 

He holds in his hand a lamp, from which the light falls on a bed of 
straw, and on the sleeping figure of a man. The high white brow, the 
pale and delicate features — them too we know, for they are those of 
Frank. Saved half-dead from the fury of the savage negroes, he has 
been reserved for the more delicate cruelty of civilized and Christian 
men. He underwent the question but this afternoon; and now Eus- 
tace, his betrayer, is come to persuade him — or to entrap him? 
Eustace himself hardly knows whether of the two. 

And yet he would give his life to save his cousin. His life? He 
has long since ceased to care for that. He has done what he has done, 
because it is his duty; and now he is to do his duty once more, and wake 
the sleeper, and argue, coax, threaten him into recantation while “ his 
heart is still tender from the torture,” so Eustace’s employers phrase it. 

And yet how calmly he is sleeping! Is it but a freak of the lamp- 
light, or is there a smile upon his lips? Eustace takes the lamp and 
bends over him to see; and as he bends he hears Frank whispering in 
his dreams his mother’s name, and a name higher and holier still. 

Eustace cannot find the heart to wake him. 

“ Let him rest,” whispers he to his companion. “After all, I fear 
my words will be of little use.” 

“ I fear so too, sir. Never did I behold a more obdurate heretic. 
He did not scruple to scoff openly at their holinesses.” 


408 


Westward Ho ! 

“Ah! ” said Eustace; “ great is the pravity of the human heart, and 
the power of Satan ! Let us go for the present. ,, 

“ Where is she? ” 

“ The elder sorceress, or the younger? ” 

“ The younger — the ” 

“ The Senora de Soto? Ah, poor thing! One could be sorry for 
her, were she not a heretic.” And the man eyed Eustace keenly, and 
then quietly added, “ She is at present with the notary; to the benefit 
of her soul, I trust ” 

Eustace half stopped, shuddering. He could hardly collect him- 
self enough to gasp out an “Amen ! ” 

“ Within there,” said the man, pointing carelessly to a door as they 
went down the corridor. “ We can listen a moment, if you like; but 
don’t betray me, Senor.” 

Eustace knows well enough that the fellow is probably on the watch 
to betray him, if he shows any signs of compunction; at least to report 
faithfully to his superiors the slightest expression of sympathy with a 
heretic; but a horrible curiosity prevails over fear, and he pauses close 
to the fatal door. His face is all of a flame, his knees knock together, 
his ears are ringing, his heart bursting through his ribs, as he supports 
himself against the wall, hiding his convulsed face as well as he can 
from his companion. 

A man’s voice is plainly audible within; low, but distinct. The 
notary is trying that old charge of witchcraft, which the Inquisitors, 
whether to justify themselves to their own consciences, or to whiten 
their villainy somewhat in the eyes of the mob, so often brought against 
their victims. And then Eustace’s heart sinks within him as he hears 
a woman’s voice reply, sharpened by indignation and agony, — 

“ Witchcraft against Don Guzman? What need of that, oh God! 
what need? ” 

“ You deny it then, Senora? we are sorry for you; but ” 

A confused choking murmur from the victim, mingled with words 
which might mean anything or nothing. 

“ She has confessed! ” whispered Eustace; “ Saints, I thank you! — 
she ” 

A wail which rings through Eustace’s ears, and brain, and heart! 
He would have torn at the door to open it; but his companion forces 
him away. Another, and another wail, while the wretched man hur- 
ries off, stopping his ears in vain against those piercing cries, which 
follow him, like avenging angels, through the dreadful vaults. 


409 


The Inc^uisihion 

He escaped into the fragrant open air, and the golden tropic moon- 
light, and a garden which might have served as a model for Eden; but 
man’s hell followed into God’s heaven, and still those wails seemed to 
ring through his ears. 

“ Oh, misery, misery, misery !” murmured he to himself through 
grinding teeth ; “ and I have brought her to this ! I have had to bring 
her to it! What else could I? Who dare blame me? And yet what 
devilish sin can I have committed, that requires to be punished thus? 
Was there no one to be found but me? No one? And yet it may 
save her soul. It may bring her to repentance ! ” 

“It may, indeed; for she is delicate, and cannot endure much. 
You ought to know as well as I, Senor, the merciful disposition of 
the Holy Office.” 

“ I know it, I know it,” interrupted poor Eustace, trembling now 
for himself. “All in love — all in love. — A paternal chastisement ” 

“And the proofs of heresy are patent, beside the strong suspicion of 
enchantment, and the known character of the elder sorceress. You 
yourself, you must remember, Senor, told us that she had been a 
notorious witch in England, before the Senora brought her hither as 
her attendant.” 

“ Of course she was; of course. Yes; there was no other course 
open. And though the flesh may be weak, sir, in my case, yet none 
can have proved better to the Holy Office how willing is the spirit! ” 

And so Eustace departed; and ere another sun had set, he had gone 
to the principal of the Jesuits; told him his whole heart, or as much 
of it, poor wretch, as he dare tell to himself; and entreated to be 
allowed to finish his novitiate, and enter the order, on the understand- 
ing that he was to be sent at once back to Europe, or anywhere else; 
“ Otherwise,” as he said frankly, “ he should go mad, even if he were 
not mad already.” The Jesuit, who was a kindly man enough, went 
to the Holy Office, and settled all with the Inquisitors, recounting to 
them, to set him above all suspicion, Eustace’s past valiant services lo 
the church. His testimony was no longer needed; he left Carthagena 
for Nombre that very night, and sailed the next week I know not 
whither. 

I say, I know not whither. Eustace Leigh vanishes henceforth 
from these pages. He may have ended as General of his Order. He 
may have worn out his years in some tropic forest, conquering the 
souls” (including, of course, the bodies) of Indians; he may have 
gone back to his old work in England, and been the very Ballard who 


410 


Westward Ho l 

was hanged and quartered three years afterward for his share in 
Babington’s villainous conspiracy: I know not. This book is a history 
of men; of men’s virtues and sins, victories and defeats: and Eustace 
is a man no longer; he is become a thing, a tool, a Jesuit; which goes 
only where it is sent, and does good or evil indifferently as it is bid; 
which, by an act of moral suicide, has lost its soul, in the hope of saving 
it; without a will, a conscience, a responsibility (as it fancies), to God 
or man, but only to “ The Society.” In a word, Eustace, as he says 
of himself, is “ dead.” Twice dead, I fear. Let the dead bury their 
dead. We have no more concern with Eustace Leigh. 



sSir Francis DralCe, Kt 


CHAPTER yXIU. 

The banks of Hie Meta. 

“My mariners, 

Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me — 

Death closes all : but something ere the end, 

Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 

Not unbecoming men that strove with gods!” 

Tennyson’s Ulysses. 

Nearly three years are past and gone since that little band had 
knelt at evensong beneath the giant tree of Guayra— years of seem- 
ing blank, through which they are to be tracked only by scattered notes 
and misspelt names. Through untrodden hills and forests, over a 
space of some eight hundred miles in length by four hundred in 
breadth, they had been seeking for the Golden City, and they had 
sought in vain. They had sought it along the wooded banks of the 
Orinoco, and beyond the roaring foam-world of Mavpures, and on 
the upper waters of the mighty Amazon. They had gone up the 
streams even into Peru itself, and had trodden the cinchona groves of 
Loxa, ignorant, as all the world was then, of their healing virtues. 
They had seen the virgin snows of Chimborazo towering white above 
the thunder-cloud, and the giant cone of Cotopaxi blackening in its 
sullen wrath, before the fiery streams rolled down its sides. Foiled in 
their search at the back of the Andes, they had turned eastward once 
more, and plunged from the Alpine cliffs into “ the green and misty 
ocean of the Montana.” Slowly and painfully they had worked their 
way northward again, along the eastern foot of the inland Cordillera, 
and now they were bivouacking, as it seems, upon one of the many 
feeders of the Meta, which flow down from the Suma Paz into the 
forest-covered plains. There they sat, their watch-fires glittering on 
the stream, beneath the shadow of enormous trees, Amyas and Cary, 
Brimblecombe, Yeo, and the Indian lad, who has followed them in all 
their wanderings, alive and well: but as far as ever from Manoa, and 
its fairy lake, and golden palaces, and all the wonders of the Indian’s 
tale. Again and again in their wanderings they had heard faint 
rumors of its existence, and started off in some fresh direction, to meet 
only a fresh disappointment, and hope deferred which maketh sick the 
heart. 


412 


Westward Ho ! 

There they sit at last — four-and-forty men out of the eighty-four 
who left the tree of Guayra: — where are the rest? 

“Their bones are scatter’d far and wide, 

By mount, by stream, and sea.’ ’ 

Drew, the master, lies on the banks of the Rio Negro, and five brave 
fellows by him, slain in fight by the poisoned arrows of the Indians, 
in a vain attempt to penetrate the mountain-gorges of the Parima. 
Two more lie amid the valleys of the Andes, frozen to death by the 
fierce slaty hail which sweeps down from the condor’s eyrie; four more 
were drowned at one of the rapids of the Orinoco; five or six more 
wounded men are left behind at another rapid among friendly Indians, 
to be recovered when they can be: perhaps never. Fever, snakes, 
jaguars, alligators, cannibal fish, electric eels, have thinned their ranks 
month by month, and of their march through the primaeval wilderness 
no track remains, except those lonely graves. 

And there the survivors sit, beside the silent stream, beneath the 
tropic moon ; sun-dried and lean, but strong and bold as ever, with the 
quiet fire of English courage burning undimmed in every eye, and the 
genial smile of English mirth fresh on every lip; making a jest of 
danger and a sport of toil, as cheerily as when they sailed over the bar 
of Bideford, in days which seem to belong to some antenatal life. 
Their beards have grown down upon their breasts: their long hair is 
knotted on their heads, like women’s, to keep off the burning sunshine ; 
their leggings are of the skin of the delicate Guazu-puti-deer ; their 
shirts are patched with Indian cotton web; the spoils of jaguar, puma, 
and ape hang from their shoulders. Their ammunition is long since 
spent, their muskets, spoilt by the perpetual vapor-bath of the steam- 
ing woods, are left behind as useless in a cave by some cataract of the 
Orinoco: but their swords are bright and terrible as ever; and they 
carry bows of a strength which no Indian arm can bend, and arrows 
pointed with the remnants of their armor; many of them, too, are 
armed with pocuna, or blow-gun of the Indians, — more deadly, because 
more silent, than the firearms which they have left behind them. So 
they have wandered, and so they will wander still, the lords of the 
forest and its beasts; terrible to all hostile Indians, but kindly, just, 
and generous to all who will deal faithfully with them; and many a 
smooth-chinned Carib and Ature, Solimo and Guahiba, recounts with 
wonder and admiration the righteousness of the bearded heroes, who 
proclaimed themselves the deadly foes of the faithless and murderous 


418 


The Meta 

Spaniard, and spoke to them of the great and good Queen beyond the 
seas, who would send her warriors to deliver and avenge the oppressed 
Indian. 

The men are sleeping among the trees, some on the ground, and 
some in grass-hammocks slung between the stems. All is silent, save 
the heavy plunge of the tapir in the river, as he tears up the water- 
weeds for his night’s repast. Sometimes, indeed, the jaguar, as he 
climbs from one tree-top to another after his prey, wakens the monkeys 
clustered on the boughs, and they again arouse the birds, and ten 
minutes of unearthly roars, howls, shrieks, and cacklings make the 
forest ring as if all Pandemonium had broke loose; but that soon dies 
away again; and, even while it lasts, it is too common a matter to 
awaken the sleepers, much less to interrupt the council of war which 
is going on beside the watch-fire, between the three adventurers and 
the faithful Yeo. A hundred times have they had such a council, and 
in vain; and, for aught they know, this one will be as fruitless as those 
which have gone before it. Nevertheless, it is a more solemn one than 
usual; for the two years during which they had agreed to search for 
Manoa are long past, and some new place must be determined on, 
unless they intend to spend the rest of their lives in that green wilder- 
ness. 

“ Well,” says Will Cary, taking his cigar out of his mouth, “ at 
least we have got something out of those last Indians. It is a comfort 
to have a puff at tobacco once more, after three weeks’ fasting.” 

“For me,” said Jack Brimblecombe, “Heaven forgive me! but 
when I get the magical leaf between my teeth again, I feel tempted to 
sit as still as a chimney, and smoke till my dying day, without stirring 
hand or foot.” 

“ Then I shall forbid you tobacco, Master Parson,” said Amyas; 
“ for we must be up and away again to-morrow. We have been idling 
here three mortal days, and nothing done.” 

“ Shall we ever do anything? I think the gold of Manoa is like the 
gold which lies where the rainbow touches the ground, always a field 
beyond you.” 

Amyas was silent a while, and so were the rest. There was no 
denying that their hopes were all but gone. In the immense circuit 
which they had made, they had met with nothing but disappointment. 

“ There is but one more chance,” said he at length, “ and that is, the 
mountains to the east of the Orinoco, where we failed the first time. 
The Incas may have moved on to them when they escaped. 


414 


Westward. Ho ! 

“ Why not? ” said Cary; “ they would so put all the forests, beside 
the Llanos and half a dozen great rivers, between them and those 
dogs of Spaniards/’ 

“ Shall we try it once more? ” said Amyas. “ This river ought to 
run into the Orinoco ; and once there, we are again at the very foot of 
the mountains. What say you, Yeo? ” 

“ I cannot but mind, your worship, that when we came up the 
Orinoco, the Indians told us terrible stories of those mountains, how 
far they stretched, and how difficult they were to cross, by reason of 
the cliffs aloft, and the thick forests in the valleys. And have we not 
lost five good men there already? ” 

“ What care we? No forests can be thicker than those we have 
bored through already; why, if one had had but a tail, like a monkey, 
for an extra warp, one might have gone a hundred miles on end along 
the tree-tops, and found it far pleasanter walking than tripping in 
withes, and being eaten up with creeping things, from morn till night.” 

“ But remember too,” said Jack, “ how they told us to beware of 
the Amazons.” 

“ What, Jack, afraid of a parcel of women? ” 

“ Why not? ” said Jack, “ I wouldn’t run from a man, as you know: 
but a woman — it’s not natural, like. They must be witches, or devils. 
See how the Caribs feared them. And there were men there without 
necks, and with their eyes in their breasts, they said. Now how could 
a Christian tackle such customers as them?” 

“ He couldn’t cut off their heads, that’s certain: but, I suppose, a 
poke in the ribs will do as much for them as for their neighbors.” 

“ Well,” said Jack, “ if I fight, let me fight honest flesh and blood, 
that’s all, and none of these outlandish monsters. How do you know 
but that they are invulnerable by Art-magic? ” 

“ How do you know that they are? And as for the Amazons,” 
said Cary, “ woman’s woman, all the world over. I’ll bet that you 
may wheedle them round with a compliment or two, just as if they 
were so many burghers’ wives. Pity I have not a court-suit and a 
Spanish hat. I would have taken an orange in one hand, and a hand- 
kerchief in the other, gone all alone to them as ambassador, and been 
in a week as great with Queen Blackfacealinda as ever Raleigh is at 
Whitehall.” 

“ Gentlemen! ” said Yeo, “ where you go, I go; and not only I, but 
every man of us, I doubt not : but we have lost now half our company, 
and spent our ammunition; so we are no better men, were it not for 


415 


The Meta 


our swords, than these naked heathens round us. Now it was, as you 
all know, by the wonder and noise of their ordnance (let alone their 
horses, which is a breakneck beast I put no faith in) that both Cortes 
and Pizarro, those imps of Satan, made their golden conquests; with 
which if we could have astounded the people of Manoa ” 

“ Having first found the said people,” laughed Amyas. “ It is like 
the old fable. Every craftsman thinks his own trade the one pillar 
of the commonweal.” 

“ Well! your worship,” quoth Yeo, “ it may be that being a gunner, 
I overprize guns. But it don’t need slate and pencil to do this sum — 
Are forty men without shot as good as eighty with? ” 

“ Thou art right, old fellow; right enough: and I was only jesting 
for very sorrow, and must needs laugh about it, lest I weep about it. 
Our chance is over, I believe, though I dare not confess as much to 
the men.” 

“ Sir,” said Yeo, “ I have a feeling on me that the Lord’s hand is 
against us in this matter. Whether He means to keep this wealth for 
worthier men than us ; or whether it is His will to hide this great city 
in the secret place of His presence from the strife of tongues, and so 
to spare them from sinful man’s covetousness, and England from that 
sin and luxury which I have seen gold beget among the Spaniards, I 
know not, sir; for who knoweth the counsels of the Lord? But I have 
long had a voice within which saith, ‘ Salvation Yeo, thou shalt never 
behold the Golden City which is on earth, where heathens worship sun 
and moon and the hosts of heaven: be content, therefore, to see that 
Golden City which is above, where is neither sun nor moon, but the 
Lord God and the Lamb are the light thereof.’ ” 

There was a simple majesty about old Yeo when he broke forth in 
utterances like these, which made his comrades, and even Amyas and 
Cary, look on him as Mussulmans look on madmen, as possessed of 
mysterious knowledge and flashes of inspiration; and Brimblecombe, 
whose pious soul looked up to the old hero with a reverence which had 
overcome all his Churchman’s prejudices against Anabaptists, an- 
swered gently, — 

“Amen ! amen! my masters all: and it has been on my mind, too, 
this long time, that there is a providence against our going east; for see 
how this two years past, whenever we have pushed eastward, we have 
fallen into trouble, and lost good men; and whenever we went West- 
ward-ho, we have prospered; and do prosper to this day. 

“And what is more, gentlemen,” said Yeo, “ if, as Scripture says, 


416 


Westward Ho ! 

dreams are from the Lord, I verily believe mine last night came from 
Him; for as I lay by the fire, sirs, I heard my little maid’s voice calling 
of me, as plain as ever I heard in my life; and the very same words, 
sirs, which she learned from me and my good comrade, William Pen- 
berthy, to say, ‘ Westward-ho! jolly mariners all! ’ a bit of an ungodly 
song, my masters, which we sang in our wild days: but she stood and 
called it as plain as ever mortal ears heard, and called again till I 
answered , 4 Coming! my maid, coming! * and after that the dear chuck 
called no more — God grant I find her yet! — and so I woke.” 

Cary had long since given up laughing at Yeo about the “ little 
maid ” ; and Amyas answered — 

“ So let it be, Yeo, if the rest agree: but what shall we do to the 
westward? ” 

“ Do? ” said Cary; “ there’s plenty to do; for there’s plenty of gold, 
and plenty of Spaniards, too, they say, on the other side of these 
mountains: so that our swords will not rust for lack of adventures, 
my gay knights-errant all.” 

So they chatted on; and before night was half through, a plan was 
matured, desperate enough — but what cared those brave hearts for 
that? They would cross the Cordillera to Santa Fe de Bogota, of the 
wealth whereof both Yeo and Amyas had often heard in the Pacific: 
try to seize either the town, or some convoy of gold going from it; 
make for the nearest river (there was said to be a large one which ran 
northward thence), build canoes, and try to reach the Northern Sea 
once more; and then, if Heaven prospered them, they might seize a 
Spanish ship, and make their way home to England, not, indeed, with 
the wealth of Manoa, but with a fair booty of Spanish gold. This was 
their new dream. It was a wild one: but hardly more wild than the 
one which Drake had fulfilled, and not as wild as the one which Oxen- 
ham might have fulfilled, but for his own fatal folly. 

Amyas sat watching late that night, sad of heart. To give up the 
cherished dream of years was hard; to face his mother, harder still: 
but it must be done, for the men’s sake. So the new plan was pro- 
posed next day, and accepted joyfully. They would go up to the 
mountains, and rest a while; if possible, bring up the wounded whom 
they had left behind; and then, try a new venture, with new hopes, 
perhaps new dangers; they were inured to the latter. 

They started next morning cheerfully enough, and for three hours 
or more paddled easily up the glassy and windless reaches, between 
two green flower-bespangled walls of forest, gay with innumerable 



They paddled up the windless reaches 




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417 


The Meta 

birds and insects; while down from the branches which overhung the 
stream, long trailers hung to the water’s edge, and seemed admiring in 
the clear mirror the images of their own gorgeous flowers. River, 
trees, flowers, birds, insects, — it was all a fairy-land: but it was a 
colossal one; and yet the voyagers took little note of it. It was now 
to them an everyday occurrence, to see trees full two hundred feet 
high one mass of yellow or purple blossom to the highest twigs, and 
every branch and stem one hanging garden of crimson and orange 
orchids or vanillas. Common to them were all the fantastic and 
enormous shapes with which Nature bedecks her robes beneath the 
fierce suns and fattening rains of the tropic forest. Common were 
forms and colors of bird, and fish, and butterfly, more strange and 
bright than ever opium-eater dreamed. The long processions of 
monkeys, who kept pace with them along the tree-tops, and proclaimed 
their wonder in every imaginable whistle and grunt and howl, had 
ceased to move their laughter, as much as the roar of the jaguar and 
the rustle of the boa had ceased to move their fear; and when a brilliant 
green and rose-colored fish, flat-bodied like a bream, flab-finned like 
a salmon, and saw-toothed like a shark, leaped clean on board of the 
canoe to escape the rush of the huge alligator (whose loathsome snout, 
ere he could stop, actually rattled against the canoe within a foot of 
Jack Brimblecombe’s hand), Jack, instead of turning pale, as he had 
done at the sharks upon a certain memorable occasion, coolly picked 
up the fish and said, “ He’s four pound weight! If you can catch 
‘ pirai ’ for us like that, old fellow, just keep in our wake, and we’ll 
give you the cleanings for wages .” 

Yes. The mind of man is not so “ infinite,” in the vulgar sense of 
that word, as people fancy; and however greedy the appetite for won- 
der may be, while it remains unsatisfied in everyday European life, 
it is as easily satiated as any other appetite, and then leaves the senses 
of its possessor as dull as those of a city gourmand after a Lord 
Mayor’s feast. Only the highest minds, — our Humboldts, and Bon- 
plands, and Schomburgks (and they only when quickened to an almost 
unhealthy activity by civilization)— can go on long appreciating where 
Nature is insatiable, imperious, maddening, in her demands on our 
admiration. The very power of observing wears out under the rush 
of ever new objects; and the dizzy spectator is fain at last to shut the 
eyes of his soul, and take refuge (as West Indian Spaniards do) in 
tobacco and stupidity. The man, too, who has not only eyes, but 
utterance,— what shall he do where all words fail him? Superlatives 


418 


Westward Ho l 

are but inarticulate, after all, and give no pictures even of size any 
more than do numbers of feet and yards: and yet what else can we do, 
but heap superlative on superlative, and cry, “ Wonderful, wonderful I 
and after that wonderful, past all whooping ”? What Humboldt’s 
self cannot paint, we will not try to daub. The voyagers were in a 
South American forest, readers. Fill up the meaning of those words, 
each as your knowledge enables you, for I cannot do it for you. 

Certainly those adventurers could not. The absence of any attempt 
at word-painting even of admiration at the glorious things which they 
saw, is most remarkable in all early voyagers, both Spanish and Eng- 
lish. The only two exceptions which I recollect are Columbus — (but 
then all was new, and he was bound to tell what he had seen) — and 
Raleigh; the two most gifted men, perhaps, with the exception of 
Humboldt, who ever set foot in tropical America; but even they dare 
nothing but a few feeble hints in passing. Their souls had been 
dazzled and stunned by a great glory. Coming out of our European 
Nature into that tropic one, they had felt like Plato’s men, bred in the 
twilight cavern, and then suddenly turned round to the broad blaze of 
day; they had seen things awful and unspeakable: why talk of them, 
except to say with the Turks, “ God is great! ” 

So it was with these men. Among the higher-hearted of them, the 
grandeur and the glory around had attuned their spirits to itself, and 
kept up in them a lofty, heroical, reverent frame of mind; but they 
knew as little about the trees and animals in an “artistic” or “critical” 
point of view, as in a scientific one. This tree the Indians called one 
unpronounceable name, and it made good bows ; that, some other name, 
and it made good canoes; of that, you could eat the fruit; that, pro- 
duced the caoutchouc gum, useful for a hundred matters; that, was 
what the Indians (and they likewise) used to poison their arrows with; 
from the ashes of those palm-nuts you could make good salt; that 
tree, again, was full of good milk, if you bored the stem: they drank it, 
and gave God thanks, and were not astonished. God was great: but 
that they had discovered long before they came into the tropics. 
Notable old child-hearted heroes, with just romance and superstition 
enough about them to keep them from that prurient hysterical wonder 
and enthusiasm, which is simply, one often fears, a product of our 
scepticism! We do not trust enough in God, we do not really believe 
His power enough, to be ready, as they were, as every one ought to be 
on a God-made earth, for anything and everything being possible; and 
then, when a wonder is discovered, we go into ecstasies and shrieks 


419 


The Meta 

over it, and take to ourselves credit for being susceptible of so lofty a 
feeling, true index, forsooth, of a refined and cultivated mind. 

They paddled onward hour after hour, sheltering themselves as best 
they could under the shadow of the southern bank, while on their right 
hand the full sun-glare lay upon the enormous wall of mimosas, figs, 
and laurels, which formed the northern forest, broken by the slender 
shafts of bamboo tufts, and decked with a thousand gaudy parasites; 
bank upon bank of gorgeous bloom piled upward to the sky, till where 
its outline cut the blue, flowers and leaves, too lofty to be distinguished 
by the eye, formed a broken rainbow of all hues quivering in the 
ascending streams of azure mist, until they seemed to melt and mingle 
with the very heavens. 

And as the sun rose higher and higher, a great stillness fell upon 
the forest. The jaguars and the monkeys had hidden themselves in 
the darkest depths of the woods. The birds’ notes died out one by 
one; the very butterflies ceased their flitting over the tree-tops, and 
slept with outspread wings upon the glossy leaves, undistinguishable 
from the flowers around them. Now and then a colibri whirred down- 
ward toward the water, hummed for a moment around some pendent 
flower, and then the living gem was lost in the deep blackness of the 
inner wood, among tree-trunks as huge and dark as the pillars of 
some Hindoo shrine; or a parrot swung and screamed at them from 
an overhanging bough; or a thirsty monkey slid lazily down a liana 
to the surface of the stream, dipped up the water in his tiny hand, and 
started chattering back, as his eyes met those of some foul alligator 
peering upward through the clear depths below. In shaded nooks 
beneath the boughs, the capybaras, rabbits as large as sheep, went 
paddling sleepily round and round, thrusting up their unwieldy heads 
among the blooms of the blue water-lilies; while black and purple 
water-hens ran up and down upon the rafts of floating leaves. The 
shining snout of a fresh-water dolphin rose slowly to the surface; a 
jet of spray whirred up ; a rainbow hung upon it for a moment; and the 
black snout sank lazily again. Here and there, too, upon some shallow 
pebbly shore, scarlet flamingos stood dreaming knee-deep, on one leg; 
crested cranes pranced up and down, admiring their own finery; and 
ibises and egrets dipped their bills under water in search of prey: but 
before noon even those had slipped away, and there reigned a still- 
ness which might be heard — such a stillness (to compare small things 
with great) as broods beneath the rich shadows of Amyas’s own Devon 
woods, or among the lonely sweeps of Exmoor, when the heather is in 


420 


Westward Ho ! 

flower — a stillness in which, as Humboldt says, “ If beyond the silence 
we listen for the faintest undertones, we detect a stifled, continuous 
hum of insects, which crowd the air close to the earth; a confused 
swarming murmur which hangs round every bush, in the cracked bark 
of trees, in the soil undermined by lizards, millepedes, and bees; a 
voice proclaiming to us that all Nature breathes, that under a thou- 
sand different forms life swarms in the gaping and dusty earth, as 
much as in the bosom of the waters, and the air which breathes around.” 

At last a soft and distant murmur, increasing gradually to a heavy 
roar, announced that they were nearing some cataract ; till turning a 
point, where the deep alluvial soil rose into a low cliff fringed with 
delicate ferns, they came full in sight of a scene at which all paused: 
not with astonishment, but with something very like disgust. 

“ Rapids again! ” grumbled one. “ I thought we had had enough 
of them on the Orinoco.” 

“ We shall have to get out, and draw the canoes overland, I suppose. 
Three hours will be lost, and in the very hottest of the day, too.” 

“ There’s worse behind; don’t you see the spray behind the palms? ” 

“ Stop grumbling, my masters, and don’t cry out before you are 
hurt. Paddle right up to the largest of those islands, and let us look 
about us.” 

In front of them was a snow-white bar of raging foam, some ten 
feet high, along which were ranged three or four islands of black rock. 
Each was crested with a knot of lofty palms, whose green tops stood 
out clear against the bright sky, while the lower half of their stems 
loomed hazy through a luminous veil of rainbowed mist. The banks 
right and left of the fall were so densely fringed with a low hedge of 
shrubs that landing seemed all but impossible ; and their Indian guide 
suddenly looking round him and whispering, bade them beware of 
savages ; and pointed to a canoe which lay swinging in the eddies under 
the largest island, moored apparently to the root of some tree. 

“ Silence all! ” cried Amyas, “ and paddle up thither and seize the 
canoe. If there be an Indian on the island, we will have speech of 
him: but mind and treat him friendly; and on your lives, neither strike 
nor shoot, even if he offers to fight.” 

So, choosing a line of smooth backwater just in the wake of the 
island, they drove their canoes up by main force, and fastened them 
safely by the side of the Indian’s, while Amyas, always the foremost, 
sprang boldly on shore, whispering to the Indian boy to follow him. 

Once on the island, Amyas felt sure enough that if its wild tenant 


421 


The Meta 

had not seen them approach, he certainly had not heard them, so 
deafening was the noise which filled his brain, and seemed to make the 
very leaves upon the bushes quiver, and the solid stone beneath his 
feet to reel and ring. For two hundred yards and more above the 
fall, nothing met his eye but one white waste of raging foam, with 
here and there a transverse dyke of rock, which hurled columns of 
spray and surges of beaded water high into the air, — strangely con- 
trasting with the still and silent cliffs of green leaves which walled the 
river right and left, and more strangely still with the knots of enormous 
palms upon the islets, which reared their polished shafts a hundred 
feet into the air, straight and upright as masts, while their broad 
plumes and golden-clustered fruit slept in the sunshine far aloft, the 
image of the stateliest repose amid the wildest wrath of Nature. 

He looked round anxiously for the expected Indian: but he was 
nowhere to be seen; and, in the meanwhile, as he stepped cautiously 
along the island, which was some fifty yards in length and breadth, 
his senses, accustomed as they were to such sights, could not help 
dwelling on the exquisite beauty of the scene; on the garden of gay 
flowers, of every imaginable form and hue, which fringed every 
boulder at his feet, peeping out amid delicate fern-fans and luxuriant 
cushions of moss; on the checkered shade of the palms, and the cool 
air, which wafted down from the cataracts above the scents of a thou- 
sand flowers. Gradually his ear became accustomed to the roar, and, 
above its mighty undertone, he could hear the whisper of the wind 
among the shrubs, and the hum of myriad insects; while the rock 
manakin, with its saffron plumage, flitted before him from stone to 
stone, calling cheerily, and seeming to lead him on. Suddenly, scram- 
bling over the rocky flower-beds to the other side of the isle, he came 
upon a little shady beach, which, beneath a bank of stone some six 
feet high, fringed the edge of a perfectly still and glassy bay. Ten 
yards farther, the cataract fell sheer in thunder: but a high fern- 
fringed rock turned its force away from that quiet nook. In it the 
water swung slowly round and round in glassy dark-green rings, 
among which dimpled a hundred gaudy fish, waiting for every fly and 
worm which spun and quivered on the eddy. Here, if anywhere, was 
the place to find the owner of the canoe. He leaped down upon the 
pebbles; and as he did so, a figure rose from behind a neighboring rock, 
and met him face to face. 

It was an Indian girl; and yet, when he looked again, was it an 
Indian girl? Amyas had seen hundreds of those delicate dark-skinned 


422 


Westward Ho ! 

daughters of the forest, but never such a one as this. Her stature 
was taller, her limbs were fuller and more rounded; her complexion, 
though tanned by light, was fairer by far than his own sunburnt face; 
her hair, crowned with a garland of white flowers, was not lank, and 
straight, and black, like an Indian’s, but of a rich, glossy brown, and 
curling richly and crisply from her very temples to her knees. Her 
forehead, though low, was upright and ample; her nose was straight 
and small; her lips, the lips of a European; her whole face of the 
highest and richest type of Spanish beauty; a collar of gold mingled 
with green beads hung round her neck, and golden bracelets were on 
her wrists. All the strange and dim legends of white Indians, and 
of nations of a higher race than Carib, or Arrowak, or Solimo, which 
Amyas had ever heard, rose up in his memory. She must be the 
daughter of some great cacique, perhaps of the lost Incas themselves — 
why not? And full of simple wonder, he gazed upon that fairy vision, 
while she, unabashed in her free innocence, gazed fearlessly in return, 
as Eve might have done in Paradise, upon the mighty stature, and the 
strange garments, and above all, on the bushy beard and flowing 
yellow locks, of the Englishman. 

He spoke first, in some Indian tongue, gently and smilingly, and 
made a half-step forward; but quick as light she caught up from the 
ground a bow, and held it fiercely toward him, fitted with the long 
arrow, with which, as he could see, she had been striking fish, for a 
line of twisted grass hung from its barbed head. Amyas stopped, laid 
down his own bow and sword, and made another step in advance, 
smiling still, and making all Indian signs of amity: but the arrow was 
still pointed straight at his breast, and he knew the mettle and strength 
of the forest nymphs well enough, to stand still and call for the In- 
dian boy; too proud to retreat, but in the uncomfortable expectation 
of feeling every moment the shaft quivering between his ribs. 

The boy, who had been peering from above, leaped down to them 
in a moment; and began, as the safest method, groveling on his nose 
upon the pebbles, while he tried two or three dialects, one of which at 
last she seemed to understand, and answered in a tone of evident 
suspicion and anger. 

“ What does she say? ” 

“ That you are a Spaniard and a robber, because you have a 
beard.” 

“ Tell her that we are no Spaniards, but that we hate them; and are 
come across the great waters to help the Indians to kill them.” 



He gazed upon that fairy vision 



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423 


The Meta 

The boy translated his speech. The nymph answered by a con- 
temptuous shake of the head. 

Tell her that if she will send her tribe to us, we will do them no 
harm. We are going over the mountains to fight the Spaniards, and 
we want them to show us the way.” 

The boy had no sooner spoken than, nimble as a deer, the nymph 
had sprung up the rocks, and darted between the palm-stems to her 
canoe. Suddenly she caught sight of the English boat, and stopped 
with a cry of fear and rage. 

“Let her pass!” shouted Amyas, who had followed her close. 
“ Push your boat off, and let her pass. Boy, tell her to go on; they 
will not come near her.” 

But she hesitated still, and with arrow drawn to the head, faced 
first on the boat’s crew, and then on Amyas, till the Englishmen had 
shoved off full twenty yards. 

Then, leaping into her tiny piragua, she darted into the wildest 
whirl of the eddies, shooting along with vigorous strokes, while the 
English trembled as they saw the frail bark spinning and leaping amid 
the muzzles of the alligators, and the huge dog-toothed trout: but with 
the swiftness of an arrow she reached the northern bank, drove her 
canoe among the bushes, and leaping from it, darted through some 
narrow opening in the bush, and vanished like a dream. 

“ What fair virago have you unearthed? ” cried Cary, as they toiled 
up again to the landing-place. 

“ Beshrew me,” quoth Jack, “ but we are in the very land of the 
nymphs, and I shall expect to see Diana herself next, with the moon 
on her forehead.” 

“ Take care, then, where you wander hereabouts, Sir John: lest you 
end as Actseon did, by turning into a stag, and being eaten by a 
jaguar.” 

“Actseon was eaten by his own hounds, Mr. Cary, so the parallel 
don’t hold. But surely she was a very wonder of beauty ! ” 

Why was it that Amyas did not like this harmless talk? There had 
come over him the strangest new feeling; as if that fair vision was his 
property, and the men had no right to talk about her, no right to have 
even seen her. And he spoke quite surlily as he said, — 

“ You may leave the women to themselves, my masters; you 11 have 
to deal with tKe men ere long: so get your canoes up on the rock, and 
keep good watch.” 

“ Hillo! ” shouted one in a few minutes, “ here’s fresh fish enough 


424 


Westward Ho ! 

to feed us all round. I suppose that young cat-a-mountain left it 
behind her in her hurry. I wish she had left her golden chains and 
ouches into the bargain.” 

“ Well,” said another, “ we’ll take it as fair payment, for having 
made us drop down the current again to let her ladyship pass.” 

“ Leave that fish alone,” said Amyas; “ it is none of yours.” 

“ Why, sir! ” quoth the finder, in a tone of sulky deprecation. 

“ If we are to make good friends with the heathens, we had better 
not begin by stealing their goods. There are plenty more fish in the 
river; go and catch them, and let the Indians have their own.” 

The men were accustomed enough to strict and stern justice in their 
dealings with the savages: but they could not help looking slily at each 
other, and hinting, when out of sight, that the Captain seemed in a 
mighty fuss about his new acquaintance. 

However, they were expert by this time in all the Indian’s fishing 
methods; and so abundant was the animal life which swarmed around 
every rock, that in an hour fish enough lay on the beach to feed them 
all; whose forms and colors, names and families, I must leave the 
reader to guess from the wondrous pages of Sir Richard Schomburgk, 
for I know too little of them to speak without the fear of making mis- 
takes. 

A full hour passed before they saw anything more of their Indian 
neighbors; and then from under the bushes shot out a canoe, on which 
all eyes were fixed in expectation. 

Amyas, who expected to find there some remnant of a higher race, 
was disappointed enough at seeing on board only the usual half dozen 
of low-browed, dirty Orsons, painted red with arnotto: but a gray- 
headed elder at the stern seemed, by his feathers and gold ornaments, 
to be some man of note in the little woodland community. 

The canoe came close up to the island; Amyas saw that they were 
unarmed, and, laying down his weapons, advanced alone to the bank, 
making all signs of amity. They were returned with interest by the 
old man, and Amyas’s next care was to bring forward the fish which 
the fair nymph had left behind, and, through the medium of the Indian 
lad, to give the cacique (for so he seemed to be) to understand that he 
wished to render every one his own. This offer was received, as 
Amyas expected, with great applause, and the canoe came alongside: 
but the crew still seemed afraid to land. Amyas bade his men throw 
the fish one by one into the boat; and then proclaimed by the boy’s 
mouth, as was his custom with all Indians, that he and his were enemies 


425 


The Meta 

of the Spaniards, and on their way to make war against them, — and 
that all which they desired was a peaceable and safe passage through 
the dominions of the mighty potentate and renowned warrior whom 
they beheld before them; for Amyas argued rightly enough, that even 
if the old fellow aft was not the cacique, he would be none the less 
pleased at being mistaken for him. 

Whereon the ancient worthy, rising in the canoe, pointed to heaven, 
earth, and the things under, and commenced a long sermon, in tone, 
manner, and articulation, very like one of those which the great black- 
bearded apes were in the habit of preaching every evening when they 
could get together a congregation of little monkeys to listen, to the 
great scandal of J ack, who would have it that some evil spirit set them 
on to mimic him; which sermon, being partly interpreted by the Indian 
lad, seemed to signify that the valor and justice of the white men had 
already reached the ears of the speaker, and that he was sent to wel- 
come them into those regions by the Daughter of the Sun. 

“ The Daughter of the Sun! ” quoth Amyas; “ then we have found 
the lost Incas after all.” 

“ We have found something,” said Cary; “ I only hope it may not 
be a mare’s nest, like many another of our finding.” 

“ Or an adder’s,” said Yeo. “ We must beware of treachery.” 

“ We must beware of no such thing,” said Amyas, pretty sharply. 
“ Have I not told you fifty times, that if they see that we trust them, 
they will trust us, and if they see that we suspect them, they will sus- 
pect us? And when two parties are watching to see who strikes the 
first blow, they are sure to come to fisticuffs from mere dirty fear of 
each other.” 

Amyas spoke truth; for almost every atrocity against savages which 
had been committed by the Spaniards, and which was in later and 
worse times committed by the English, was wont to be excused in that 
same base fear of treachery. Amyas’s plan, like that of Drake, and 
Cook, and all great English voyagers, had been all along to inspire at 
once awe and confidence, by a frank and fearless carriage ; and he was 
not disappointed here. He bade the men step boldly into their canoes, 
and follow the old Indian whither he would. The simple children of 
the forest bowed themselves reverently before the mighty strangers, 
and then led them smilingly across the stream, and through a narrow 
passage in the covert, to a hidden lagoon, on the banks of which stood, 
not Manoa, but a tiny Indian village. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

How Aniysa v%$ tempted, of Hie Devil. 

“Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 
To war with evil ? Is there any peace 
In always climbing up the climbing wave ? 

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 
In silence ; ripen, fall and cease : 

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.” 

Tennyson. 

Humboldt has somewhere a curious passage; in which, looking on 
some wretched group of Indians, squatting stupidly round their fires, 
besmeared with grease and paint, and devouring ants and clay, he 
somewhat naively remarks, that were it not for science, which teaches 
us that such is the crude material of humanity, and this the state from 
which we all have risen, he should have been tempted rather to look 
upon those hapless beings as the last degraded remnants of some fallen 
and dying race. One wishes that the great traveler had been bold 
enough to yield to that temptation, which his own reason and common 
sense presented to him as the real explanation of the sad sight, instead 
of following the dogmas of a so-called science, which has not a fact 
whereon to base its wild notion, and must ignore a thousand facts in 
asserting it. His own good sense, it seems, coincided instinctively 
with the Bible doctrine, that man in a state of nature is a fallen being, 
doomed to death — a view which may be a sad one, but still one more 
honorable to poor humanity than the theory that we all began as some 
sort of two-handed apes. It is surely more hopeful to believe that 
those poor Otomacs or Guahibas were not what they ought to be, than 
to believe that they were. It is certainly more complimentary to them, 
to think that they had been somewhat nobler and more prudent in 
centuries gone by, than that they were such blockheads as to have 
dragged on, the son after the father, for all the thousands of years 
which have elapsed since man was made, without having had wit 
enough to discover any better food than ants and clay. 

Our voyagers, however, like those of their time, troubled their heads 
with no such questions. Taking the Bible story as they found it, they 
agreed with Humboldt’s reason, and not with his science ; or, to speak 


How Amyas -was tempted 427 

correctly, agreed with Humboldt’s self, and not with the shallow 
anthropologic theories which happened to be in vogue fifty years ago; 
and their new hosts were in their eyes immortal souls like themselves, 
_ captivated by the devil at his will,” lost there in the pathless forests, 
likely to be lost hereafter. 

And certainly facts seemed to bear out their old-fashioned theories; 
although these Indians had sunk by no means so low as the Guahibas 
whom they had met upon the lower waters of the same river. 

They beheld on landing a scattered village of palm-leaf sheds, under 
which, as usual, the hammocks were slung from tree to tree. Here 
and there, in openings in the forests, patches of cassava and indigo 
appeared; and there was a look of neatness and comfort about the 
little settlement superior to the average. 

But now for the signs of the evil spirit. Certainly, it was no good 
spirit who had inspired them with the art of music; or else (as Cary 
said) Apollo and Mercury (if they ever visited America) had played 
their forefathers a shabby trick, and put them off with very poor in- 
struments and still poorer taste. For on either side of the landing- 
place were arranged four or five stout fellows, each with a tall drum, 
or long earthen trumpet, swelling out in the course of its length into 
several hollow balls, from which arose, the moment the strangers set 
foot on shore, so deafening a cacophony of howls, and groans, and 
thumps, as fully to justify Yeo’s remark, “ They are calling upon their 
devil, sir.” To which Cary answered, with some show of reason, that 
“ they were the less likely to be disappointed, for none but Sir Urian 
would ever come to listen to such a noise.” 

“And you mark, sirs,” said Yeo, “ there’s some feast or sacrifice to- 
ward. I’m not over-confident of them yet.” 

“ Nonsense! ” said Amyas, “ we could kill every soul of them in half 
an hour, and they know that as well as me.” 

But some great demonstration was plainly toward: for the children 
of the forest were arrayed in two lines right and left of the open space, 
the men in front, and the women behind; and all bedizened, to the best 
of their power, with arnotto, indigo, and feathers. 

Next, with a hideous yell, leaped into the centre of the space a per- 
sonage who certainly could not have complained if any one had taken 
him for the devil, for he had dressed himself up carefully for that very 
intent in a jaguar-skin with a long tail, grinning teeth, a pair of horns, 
a plume of black and yellow feathers, and a huge rattle. 

“ Here’s the Piache, the rascal,” says Amyas. 


428 


Westward Ho ! 

“Ay,” says Yeo, “ in Satan’s livery, and I’ve no doubt his works are 
according, trust him for it.” 

“ Don’t be frightened, Jack,” says Cary, backing up Brimblecombe 
from behind. “ It’s your business to tackle him, you know. At him 
boldly, and he’ll run.” 

Whereat all the men laughed; and the Piache, who had intended to 
produce a very solemn impression, hung fire a little. However, being 
accustomed to get his bread by his impudence, he soon recovered him- 
self, advanced, smote one of the musicians over the head with his rattle 
to procure silence; and then began a harangue, to which Amy as lis- 
tened patiently, cigar in mouth. 

“ What’s it all about, boy? ” 

“ He wants to know whether you have seen Amalivaca, on the other 
shore of the great water? ” 

Amyas was accustomed to this inquiry after the mythic civilizer of 
the forest Indians, who after carving the mysterious sculptures which 
appear upon so many inland cliffs of that region, returned again 
whence he came, beyond the ocean. He answered, as usual, by setting 
forth the praises of Queen Elizabeth. 

To which the Piache replied, that she must be one of Amalivaca’s 
seven daughters, some of whom he took back with him, while he broke 
the legs of the rest to prevent their running away, and left them to 
people the forests. 

To which Amyas replied, that his Queen’s legs were certainly not 
broken: for she was a very model of grace and activity, and the best 
dancer in all her dominions : but that it was more important to him to 
know whether the tribe would give them cassava bread, and let them 
stay peaceably on that island, to rest a while before they went on to 
fight the clothed men (the Spaniards) , on the other side of the moun- 
tains. 

On which the Piache, after capering and turning head over heels 
with much howling, beckoned Amyas and his party to follow him; 
they did so, seeing that the Indians were all unarmed, and evidently in 
the highest good humor. 

The Piache went toward the door of a carefully closed hut, and 
crawling up to it on all fours in most abject fashion, began whining to 
some one within. 

“Ask what he is about, boy.” 

The lad asked the old Cacique, who had accompanied them; and re- 
ceived for answer, that he was consulting the Daughter of the Sun. 


How Amyas -was tempted 429 

“ Here is our mare’s nest at last,” quoth Cary, as the Piache from 
whines rose to screams and gesticulations, and then to violent convul- 
sions, foaming at the mouth, and rolling of the eyeballs, till he sud- 
denly sank exhausted, and lay for dead. 

“As good as a stage play.” 

“ The Devil has played his part,” says Jack; “ and now by the rules 
of all plays Vice should come on.” 

“And a very fair Vice it will be, I suspect; a right sweet Iniquity, 
my Jack! Listen.” 

And from the interior of the hut rose a low sweet song, at which all 
the simple Indians bowed their heads in reverence; and the English 
were hushed in astonishment; for the voice was not shrill or guttural, 
like that of an Indian, but round, clear, and rich, like a European’s; 
and as it swelled and rose louder and louder, showed a compass and 
power which would have been extraordinary anywhere (and many a 
man of the party, as was usual in musical old England, was a good 
judge enough of such a matter, and could hold his part right well in 
glee, and catch, and roundelay, and psalm). And as it leaped, and 
ran, and sank again, and rose once more to fall once more, all but inar- 
ticulate, yet perfect in melody, like the voice of bird on bough, the 
wild wanderers were rapt in new delight, and did not wonder at the 
Indians as they bowed their heads, and welcomed the notes as mes- 
sengers from some higher world. At last one triumphant burst, so 
shrill that all ears rang again, and then dead silence. The Piache, 
suddenly restored to life, jumped upright, and recommenced preach- 
ing at Amyas. 

“ Tell the howling villain to make short work of it, lad ! His tune 
won’t do after that last one.” 

The lad, grinning, informed Amyas that the Piache signified their 
acceptance as friends by the Daughter of the Sun; that her friends 
were theirs, and her foes theirs. Whereon the Indians set up a scream 
of delight, and Amyas, rolling another tobacco leaf up in another strip 
of plantain, answered, — 

“ Then let her give us some cassava,” and lighted a fresh cigar. 

Whereon the door of the hut opened, and the Indians prostrated 
themselves to the earth, as there came forth the same fair apparition 
which they had encountered upon the island, but decked now in 
feather-robes, and plumes of every imaginable hue. 

Slowly and stately, as one accustomed to command, she walked up 
to Amyas, glancing proudly round on her prostrate adorers, and 


430 


Westward Ho ! 

pointing with graceful arms to the trees, the gardens and the huts, gave 
him to understand by signs (so expressive were her looks, that no 
words were needed) that all was at his service; after which, taking his 
hand, she lifted it gently to her forehead. 

At that sign of submission a shout of rapture rose from the crowd ; 
and as the mysterious maiden retired again to her hut, they pressed 
round the English, caressing and admiring, pointing with equal sur- 
prise to their swords, to their Indian bows and blow-guns, and to the 
trophies of wild beasts with which they were clothed; while women 
hastened off to bring fruit, and flowers, and cassava, and (to Amyas’s 
great anxiety) calabashes of intoxicating drink; and, to make a long 
story short, the English sat down beneath the trees, and feasted mer- 
rily, while the drums and trumpets made hideous music, and lithe 
young girls and lads danced uncouth dances, which so scandalized both 
Brimblecombe and Yeo, that they persuaded Amy as to beat an early 
retreat. He was willing enough to get back to the island while the 
men were still sober; so there were many leave-takings and promises of 
return on the morrow, and the party paddled back to their island- 
fortress, racking their wits as to who or what the mysterious maid 
could be. 

Amyas, however, had settled in his mind that she was one of the lost 
Inca race; perhaps a descendant of that very fair girl, wife of the Inca 
Manco, whom Pizarro, forty years before, had, merely to torture the 
fugitive king’s heart, as his body was safe from the tyrant’s reach, 
stripped, scourged, and shot to death with arrows, uncomplaining to 
the last. 

They all assembled for the evening service (hardly a day had passed 
since they left England on which they had not done the same) ; and 
after it was over, they must needs sing a Psalm, and then a catch or 
two, ere they went to sleep; and till the moon was high in heaven, 
twenty mellow voices rang out above the roar of the cataract, in many 
a good old tune. Once or twice they thought they heard an echo to 
their song: but they took no note of it, till Cary, who had gone apart 
for a few minutes, returned, and whispered Amyas away. 

“ The sweet Iniquity is mimicking us, lad.” 

They went to the brink of the river; and there (for their ears were 
by this time dead to the noise of the torrent) they could hear plainly 
the same voice which had so surprised them in the hut, repeating, clear 
and true, snatches of the airs which they had sung. Strange and sol- 
emn enough was the effect of the men’s deep voices on the island, an- 


431 


How Amyas was tempted 

swered out of the dark forest by those sweet treble notes; and the two 
young men stood a long while listening and looking out across the 
eddies, which swirled down golden in the moonlight: but they could see 
nothing beyond save the black wall of trees. After a while the voice 
ceased, and the two returned to dream of Incas and nightingales. 

They visited the village again next day; and every day for a week or 
more; but the maiden appeared but rarely, and when she did, kept her 
distance as haughtily as a queen. 

Amyas, of course, as soon as he could converse somewhat better with 
his new friends, was not long before he questioned the Cacique about 
her. But the old man made an owl’s face at her name, and intimated 
by mysterious shakes of the head, that she was a very strange person- 
age, and the less said about her the better. She was “ a child of the 
Sun,” and that was enough. 

“ Tell him, boy,” quoth Cary, “ that we are the children of the Sun 
by his first wife ; and have orders from him to inquire how the Indians 
have behaved to our stepsister, for he cannot see all their tricks down 
here, the trees are so thick. So let him tell us, or all the cassava plants 
shall be blighted.” 

“Will, Will, don’t play with lying!” said Amyas: but the threat 
was enough for the Cacique, and taking them in his canoe a full mile 
down the stream, as if in fear that the wonderful maiden should over- 
hear him, he told them, in a sort of rhythmic chant, how, many moons 
ago (he could not tell how many), his tribe was a mighty nation, and 
dwelt in Papamene, till the Spaniards drove them forth. And how, 
as they wandered northward, far away upon the mountain spurs be- 
neath the flaming cone of Cotopaxi, they had found this fair creature 
wandering in the forest, about the bigness of a seven years’ child. 
Wondering at her white skin and her delicate beauty, the simple In- 
dians worshipped her as a god, and led her home with them. And 
when they found that she was human like themselves, their wonder 
scarcely lessened. How could so tender a being have sustained life in 
those forests, and escaped the jaguar and the snake? She must be 
under some Divine protection: she must be a daughter of the Sun, one 
of that mighty Inca race, the news of whose fearful fall had reached 
even those lonely wildernesses; who had, many of them, haunted for 
years as exiles the eastern slopes of the Andes, about the Ucalayi and 
the Maranon; who would, as all Indians knew, rise again some day to 
power, when bearded white men should come across the seas to restore 
them to their ancient throne. 


432 


Westward Ho S 

So, as the girl grew up among them, she was tended with royal 
honors, by command of the conjuror of the tribe, that so her forefather 
the Sun might be propitious to them, and the Incas might show favor 
to the poor ruined Omaguas, in the day of their coming glory. And 
as she grew, she had become, it seemed, somewhat of a prophetess 
among them, as well as an object of f etish- worship ; for she was more 
prudent in council, valiant in war, and cunning in the chase, than all 
the elders of the tribe; and those strange and sweet songs of hers, which 
had so surprised the white men, were full of mysterious wisdom about 
the birds, and the animals, and the flowers, and the rivers, which the 
Sun and the Good Spirit taught her from above. So she had lived 
among them, unmarried still, not only because she despised the ad- 
dresses of all Indian youths, but because the conjuror had declared it 
to be profane in them to mingle with the race of the Sun, and had as- 
signed her a cabin near his own, where she was served in state, and gave 
some sort of oracular responses, as they had seen, to the questions 
which he put to her. 

Such was the Cacique’s tale; on which Cary remarked, probably not 
unjustly, that he “ dared to say the conjuror made a very good thing 
of it: ” but Amyas was silent, full of dreams, if not about Manoa, still 
about the remnant of the Inca race. What if they were still to be 
found about the southern sources of the Amazon? He must have been 
very near them already, in that case. It was vexatious; but at least 
he might be sure that they had formed no great kingdom in that direc- 
tion, or he should have heard of it long ago. Perhaps they had moved 
lately from thence eastward, to escape some fresK encroachment of the 
Spaniards ; and this girl had been left behind in their flight. And then 
he recollected with a sigh, how hopeless was any further search with his 
diminished band. At least, he might learn something of the truth 
from the maiden herself. It might be useful to him in some future 
attempt; for he had not yet given up Manoa. If he but got safe home, 
there was many a gallant gentleman (and Raleigh came at once into 
his mind) who would join him in a fresh search for the Golden City of 
Guiana; not by the upper waters, but by the mouth of the Orinoco. 

So they paddled back, while the simple Cacique entreated them to 
tell the Sun, in their daily prayers, how well the wild people had 
treated his descendant; and besought them not to take her away with 
them, lest the Sun should forget the poor Omaguas, and ripen their 
manioc and their fruit no more. 

Amyas had no wish to stay where he was longer than was absolutely 


483 


How Amyas was tempted 

necessary to bring up the sick men from the Orinoco ; but this, he well 
knew, would be a journey probably of some months, and attended with 
much danger. 

Cary volunteered at once, however, to undertake the adventure, if 
half a dozen men would join him, and the Indians would send a few 
young men to help in working the canoe: but this latter item was not 
an easy one to obtain ; for the tribe with whom they now were, stood in 
some fear of the fierce and brutal Guahibas, through whose country 
they must pass ; and every Indian tribe, as Amy as knew well enough, 
looks on each tribe of different language to itself as natural enemies, 
hateful, and made only to be destroyed wherever met. This strange 
fact, too, Amyas and his party attributed to delusion of the devil, the 
divider and accuser; and I am of opinion that they were perfectly 
right: only let Amyas take care that while he is discovering the devil in 
the Indians, he does not give place to him in himself, and that in more 
ways than one. But of that more hereafter. 

Whether, however, it was pride or shyness which kept the maiden 
aloof, she conquered it after a while; perhaps through mere woman’s 
curiosity; and perhaps, too, from mere longing for amusement in a 
place so unspeakably stupid as the forest. She gave the English to 
understand, however, that though they all might be very important 
personages, none of them was to be her companion but Amyas. And 
ere a month was past, she was often hunting with him far and wide in 
the neighboring forest, with a train of chosen nymphs, whom she had 
persuaded to follow her example and spurn the dusky suitors around. 
This fashion, not uncommon, perhaps, among the Indian tribes, where 
women are continually escaping to the forest from the tyranny of the 
men, and often, perhaps, forming temporary communities, was to the 
English a plain proof that they were near the land of the famous 
Amazons, of whom they had heard so often from the Indians; while 
Amyas had no doubt that, as a descendant of the Incas, the maiden 
preserved the tradition of the Virgins of the Sun, and of the austere 
monastic rule of the Peruvian superstition. Had not that valiant Ger- 
man, George of Spires, and Jeronimo Ortal too, fifty years before, 
found convents of the Sun upon these very upper waters? 

So a harmless friendship sprang up between Amyas and the girl, 
which soon turned to good account. For she no sooner heard that he 
needed a crew of Indians, than she consulted the Piache, assembled the 
tribe, and having retired to her hut, commenced a song, which (unless 
the Piache lied) was a command to furnish young men for Cary’s ex- 


434 


Westward Ho ! 

pedition, under penalty of the sovereign displeasure of an evil spirit 
with an unpronounceable name — an argument which succeeded on the 
spot, and the canoe departed on its perilous errand. 

John Brimblecombe had great doubts whether a venture thus 
started by direct help and patronage of the fiend would succeed; and 
Amyas himself, disliking the humbug, told Ayacanora that it would 
be better to have told the tribe that it was a good deed, and pleasing to 
the Good Spirit. 

“Ah ! ” said she, naively enough, “ they know better than that. The 
Good Spirit is big and lazy; and he smiles, and takes no trouble; but 
the little bad spirit, he is so busy — here, and there, and everywhere,” 
and she waved her pretty hands up and down; “ he is the useful one to 
have for a friend! ” Which sentiment the Piache much approved, as 
becailie his occupation; and once told Brimblecombe pretty sharply, 
that he was a meddlesome fellow for telling the Indians that the Good 
Spirit cared for them; “ for,” quoth he, “ if they begin to ask the Good 
Spirit for what they want, who will bring me cassava and cocoa for 
keeping the bad spirit quiet? ” This argument, however forcible the 
devil’s priests in all ages have felt it to be, did not stop Jack’s preach- 
ing (and very good and righteous preaching it was, moreover), and 
much less the morning and evening service in the island camp. This 
last, the Indians, attracted by the singing, attended in such numbers 
that the Piache found his occupation gone, and vowed to put an end to 
Jack’s Gospel with a poisoned arrow. 

Which plan he (blinded by his master, Satan, so Jack phrased it) 
took into his head to impart to Ayacanora, as the partner of his tithes 
and offerings; and was exceedingly astonished to receive in answer a 
box on the ear, and a storm of abuse. After which, Ayacanora went 
to Amyas, and telling him all, proposed that the Piache should be 
thrown to the alligators, and Jack installed in his place; declaring that 
whatsoever the bearded men said must be true, and whosoever plotted 
against them should die the death. 

Jack, however, magnanimously forgave his foe, and preached on, of 
course with fresh zeal; but not, alas! with much success. For the con- 
juror, though his main treasure was gone over to the camp of the 
enemy, had a reserve in a certain holy trumpet, which was hidden mys- 
teriously in a cave on the neighboring hills, not to be looked on by 
woman under pain of death; and it was well known, and had been 
known for generations, that unless that trumpet, after fastings, flagel- 
lations, and other solemn rites, was blown by night throughout the 


485 


How Amyas was tempted 

woods, the palm-trees would bear no fruit; yea, so great was the fame 
of that trumpet, that neighboring tribes sent at the proper season to 
hire it and the blower thereof, by payment of much precious trumpery, 
that so they might be sharers in its fertilizing powers. 

So the Piache announced one day in public, that in consequence of 
the impiety of the Omaguas, he should retire to a neighboring tribe, of 
more religious turn of mind ; and taking with him the precious instru- 
ment, leave their palms to blight, and themselves to the evil spirit. 

Dire was the wailing, and dire the wrath throughout the village. 
J ack’s words were allowed to be good words ; but what was the Gospel 
in comparison of the trumpet? The rascal saw his advantage, and 
began a fierce harangue against the heretic strangers. As he mad- 
dened, his hearers maddened; the savage nature, capricious as a child’s, 
flashed out in wild suspicion. Women yelled, men scowled, and ran 
hastily to their huts for bows and blow-guns. The case was grown 
critical. There were not more than a dozen men with Amyas at the 
time, and they had only their swords, while the Indian men might mus- 
ter nearly a hundred. Amyas forbade his men either to draw or to 
retreat; but poisoned arrows were weapons before which the boldest 
might well quail; and more than one cheek grew pale, which had 
seldom been pale before. 

“ It is God’s quarrel, sirs all,” said Jack Brimblecombe ; “ let Him 
defend the right.” 

As he spoke, from Ayacanora’s hut arose her magic song, and quiv- 
ered aloft among the green heights of the forest. 

The mob stood spellbound, still growling fiercely, but not daring to 
move. Another moment, and she had rushed out, like a very Diana, 
into the centre of the ring, bow in hand, and arrow on the 
string. 

The fallen “ children of wrath ” had found their match in her; for 
her beautiful face was convulsed with fury. Almost foaming in her 
passion, she burst forth with bitter revilings; she pointed with admira- 
tion to the English, and then with fiercest contempt to the Indians; 
and at last, with fierce gestures, seemed to cast off the very dust of her 
feet against them, and springing to Amyas’s side, placed herself in the 
forefront of the English battle. 

The whole scene was so sudden that Amyas had hardly discovered 
whether she came as friend or foe, before her bow was raised. He had 
just time to strike up her hand, when the arrow flew past the ear of the 
offending Piache, and stuck quivering in a tree. 


436 Westward Ho ! 

“ Let me kill the wretch! ” said she, stamping with rage; but Amyas 
held her arm firmly. 

“ Fools! ” cried she to the tribe, while tears of anger rolled down her 
cheeks. “ Choose between me and your trumpet ! I am a daughter 
of the Sun ; I am white ; I am a companion for Englishmen ! But you ! 
your mothers were Guahibas, and ate mud; and your fathers — they 
were howling apes! Let them sing to you! I shall go to the white 
men, and never sing you to sleep any more; and when the little evil 
spirit misses my voice, he will come and tumble you out of your ham- 
mocks, and make you dream of ghosts every night, till you grow as thin 
as blow-guns, and as stupid as aye-ayes! ” 1 

This terrible counter-threat, in spite of the slight bathos involved, 
had its effect; for it appealed to that dread of the sleep world which is 
common to all savages: but the conjuror was ready to outbid the 
prophetess, and had begun a fresh oration, when Amyas turned the 
tide of war. Bursting into a huge laugh at the whole matter, he took 
the conjuror by his shoulders, sent him with one crafty kick half a 
dozen yards off upon his nose; and then, walking out of the ranks, 
shook hands round with all his Indian acquaintances. 

Whereon, like grown-up babies, they all burst out laughing too, 
shook hands with all the English, and then with each other; being, after 
all, as glad as any bishops to prorogue the convocation, and let un- 
pleasant questions stand over till the next session. The Piache re- 
lented, like a prudent man; Ayacanora returned to her hut to sulk; 
and Amyas to his island, to long for Cary’s return, for he felt himself 
on dangerous ground. 

At last Will returned, safe and sound, and as merry as ever, not 
having lost a man (though he had had a smart brush with the Gua- 
hibas) . He brought back three of the wounded men, now pretty nigh 
cured; the other two, who had lost a leg apiece, had refused to come. 
They had Indian wives; more than they could eat; and tobacco without 
end: and if it were not for the gnats (of which Cary said that there 
were more mosquitoes than there was air) , they should be the happiest 
men alive. Amyas could hardly blame the poor fellows; for the 
chance of their getting home through the forest with one leg each was 
very small, and, after all, they were making the best of a bad matter. 
And a very bad matter it seemed to him, to be left in a heathen land; 
and a still worse matter, when he overheard some of the men talking 
about their comrades’ lonely fate, as if, after all, they were not so much 

1 Two-toed sloths. 


437 


How Amyas -wastemptea 

to be pitied. He said nothing about it then, for he made a rule never 
to take notice of any facts which he got at by eavesdropping, however 
unintentional; but he longed that one of them would say as much to 
him, and he would “ give them a piece of his mind.” And a piece of 
his mind he had to give within the week; for while he was on a hunting 
party, two of his men were missing, and were not heard of for 
some days ; at the end of which time the old Cacique came to tell him 
that he believed they had taken to the forest, each with an Indian 
girl. 

Amyas was very wroth at the news. First, because it had never 
happened before: he could say with honest pride, as Raleigh did after- 
ward when he returned from his Guiana voyage, that no Indian 
woman had ever been the worse for any man of his. He had preached 
on this point month after month, and practised what he preached; and 
now his pride was sorely hurt. 

Moreover, he dreaded offense to the Indians themselves : but on this 
score the Cacique soon comforted him, telling him that the girls, as far 
as he could find, had gone off of their own free will; intimating that he 
thought it somewhat an honor to the tribe that they had found favor in 
the eyes of the bearded men; and moreover, that late wars had so 
thinned the ranks of their men, that they were glad enough to find hus- 
bands for their maidens, and had been driven of late years to kill many 
of their female infants. This sad story, common perhaps to every 
American tribe, and one of the chief causes of their extermination, re- 
assured Amyas somewhat: but he could not stomach either the loss of 
his men, or their breach of discipline; and look for them he would. 
Did any one know where they were? If the tribe knew, they did not 
care to tell: but Ayacanora, the moment she found out his wishes, van- 
ished into the forest, and returned in two days, saying that she had 
found the fugitives; but she would not show him where they were, 
unless he promised not to kill them. He, of course, had no mind for so 
rigorous a method: he both needed the men, and he had no malice 
against them, — for the one, Ebsworthy, was a plain, honest, happy- 
go-lucky sailor, and as good a hand as there was in the crew ; and the 
other was that same ne’er-do-weel Will Parracombe, his old school- 
fellow, who had been tempted by the gipsy- Jesuit at Appledore, and 
resisting that bait, had made a very fair seaman. 

So forth Amyas went, with Ayacanora as a guide, some five miles 
upward along the forest slopes, till the girl whispered, There they 
are; ” and Amyas, pushing himself gently through a thicket of bam- 


438 


Westward Ho ! 

boo, beheld a scene which, in spite of his wrath, kept him silent, and 
perhaps softened, for a minute. 

On the farther side of a little lawn, the stream leaped through a 
chasm beneath overarching vines, sprinkling eternal freshness upon all 
around, and then sank foaming into a clear rock-basin, a bath for 
Diana’s self. On its farther side, the crag rose some twenty feet in 
height, bank upon bank of feathered ferns and cushioned moss, over 
the rich green beds of which drooped a thousand orchids, scarlet, white, 
and orange, and made the still j)ool gorgeous with the reflection of 
their gorgeousness. At its more quiet outfall, it was half hidden in 
huge fantastic leaves and tall flowering stems ; but near the waterfall 
the grassy bank sloped down toward the stream, and there, on palm- 
leaves strewed upon the turf, beneath the shadow of the crags, lay the 
two men whom Amyas sought, and whom, now he had found them, he 
had hardly heart to wake from their delicious dream. 

For what a nest it was which they had found! the air was heavy with 
the scent of flowers, and quivering with the murmur of the stream, the 
humming of the colibris and insects, the cheerful song of birds, the 
gentle cooing of a hundred doves ; while now and then, from far away, 
the musical wail of the sloth, or the deep toll of the bell-bird, came 
softly to the ear. What was not there which eye or ear could need? 
And what which palate could need either? For on the rock above, 
some strange tree, leaning forward, dropped every now and then a 
luscious apple upon the grass below, and huge wild plantains bent 
beneath their load of fruit. 

There, on the stream bank, lay the two renegades from civilized life. 
They had cast away their clothes, and painted themselves, like the 
Indians, with arnotto and indigo. One lay lazily picking up the fruit 
which fell close to his side ; the other sat, his back against a cushion of 
soft moss, his hands folded languidly upon his lap, giving himself up 
to the soft influence of the narcotic cocoa- juice, with half-shut, dreamy 
eyes fixed on the everlasting sparkle of the waterfall — 

tl While beauty, born of murmuring sound, 

Did pass into his face/ ’ 

Somewhat apart crouched their two dusky brides, crowned with 
fragrant flowers, but working busily, like true women, for the lords 
whom they delighted to honor. One sat plaiting palm fibres into a 
basket; the other was boring the stem of a huge milk-tree, which rose 


How Amyas -was tempted 439 

like some mighty column on the right hand of the lawn, its broad can- 
opy of leaves unseen through the dense underwood of laurel and bam- 
boo, and betokened only by the rustle far aloft, and by the mellow 
shade in which it bathed the whole delicious scene. 

Amyas stood silent for a while, partly from noble shame at seeing 
two Christian men thus fallen of their own self-will; partly because — 
and he could not but confess that — a solemn calm brooded above that 
glorious place, to break through which seemed sacrilege even while he 
felt it a duty. Such, he thought, was Paradise of old; such our first 
parents’ bridal bower ! Ah ! if man had not fallen, he too might have 
dwelt forever in such a home — with whom? He started, and shaking 
off the spell, advanced sword in hand. 

The women saw him, and springing to their feet, caught up their 
long pocunas, and leaped like deer each in front of her beloved. There 
they stood, the deadly tubes pressed to their lips, eyeing him like 
tigresses who protect their young, while every slender limb quivered, 
not with terror but with rage. 

Amyas paused, half in admiration, half in prudence; for one rash 
step was death. But rushing through the canes, Ayacanora sprang to 
the front, and shrieked to them in Indian. At the sight of the proph- 
etess the women wavered, and Amyas, putting on as gentle a face as 
he could, stepped forward, assuring them in his best Indian that he 
would harm no one. 

“ Ebsworthy ! Parracombe ! Are you grown such savages already, 
that you have forgotten your captain? Stand up, men, and salute! 

Ebsworthy sprang to his feet, obeyed mechanically, and then slipped 
behind his bride again, as if in shame. The dreamer turned his head 
languidly, raised his hand to his forehead, and then returned to his 
contemplation. 

Amyas rested the point of his sword on the ground, and his hands 
upon the hilt, and looked sadly and solemnly upon the pair. Ebs- 
worthy broke the silence, half reproachfully, half trying to bluster 
awav the coming storm. 

“ Well, noble Captain, so you’ve hunted out us ^ poor fellows; and 
want to drag us back again in a halter, I suppose? 

“ I came to look for Christians, and I find heathens; for men, and I 
find swine. I shall leave the heathens to their wilderness, and the 
swine to their trough. Parracombe! ” 

“ He’s too happy to answer you, sir. And why not . What do you 
want of us? Our two years’ vow is out, and we are free men now. 


440 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Free to become like the beasts that perish? You are the Queen’s 
servants still, and in her name I charge you ” 

“ Free to be happy,” interrupted the man. “ With the best of 
wives, the best of food, a warmer bed than a duke’s, and a finer garden 
than an emperor’s. As for clothes, why the plague should a man wear 
them where he don’t need them? As for gold, what’s the use of it 
where Heaven sends everything ready-made to your hands ? Hearken, 
Captain Leigh. You’ve been a good captain to me, and I’ll repay you 
with a bit of sound advice. Give up your gold-hunting, and toiling 
and moiling after honor and glory, and copy us. Take that fair maid 
behind you there to wife; pitch here with us; and see if you are not 
happier in one day than ever you were in all your life before.” 

“ You are drunk, sirrah! William Parracombe! Will you speak 
to me, or shall I heave you into the stream to sober you? ” 

“ Who calls William Parracombe? ” answered a sleepy voice. 

“ I, fool! — your captain.” 

“ I am not William Parracombe. He is dead long ago of hunger, 
and labor, and heavy sorrow, and will never see Bideford town any 
more. He is turned into an Indian now; and he is to sleep, sleep, 
sleep for a hundred years, till he gets his strength again, poor 
fellow ” 

“Awake, then, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and 
Christ shall give thee light! A christened Englishman, and living 
thus the life of a beast? ” 

“ Christ shall give thee light?” answered the same unnatural ab- 
stracted voice. “ Yes ; so the parsons say. And they say too, that He 
is Lord of heaven and earth. I should have thought His light was as 
near us here as anywhere, and nearer too, by the look of the place. 
Look round ! ” said he, waving a lazy hand, “ and see the works of God, 
and the place of Paradise, whither poor weary souls go home and rest, 
after their masters in the wicked world have used them up, with labor 
and sorrow, and made them wade knee-deep in blood — I’m tired of 
blood, and tired of gold. I’ll march no more; I’ll fight no more; I’ll 
hunger no more after vanity and vexation of spirit. What shall I get 
by it? Maybe I shall leave my bones in the wilderness. I can but do 
that here. Maybe I shall get home with a few pezos, to die an old 
cripple in some stinking hovel, that a monkey would scorn to lodge in 
here. You may go on; it’ll pay you. You may be a rich man, and a 
knight, and live in a fine house, and drink good wine, and go to Court, 
and torment your soul with trying to get more, when you’ve got too 


441 


How Amya s -was tempted 

much already ; plotting and planning to scramble upon your neighbor’s 
shoulders, as they all did — Sir Richard, and Mr. Raleigh, and Chiches- 
ter, and poor dear old Sir Warham, and all of them that I used to 
watch when I lived before. They were no happier than I was then; 
I’ll warrant they are no happier now. Go your ways, captain; climb 
to glory upon some other backs than ours, and leave us here in peace, 
alone with God and God’s woods, and the good wives that God has 
given us, to play a little like school children. It’s long since I’ve had 
play-hours; and now I’ll be a little child once more, with the flowers, 
and the singing birds, and the silver fishes in the stream, that are at 
peace, and think no harm, and want neither clothes, nor money, nor 
knighthood, nor peerage, but just take what comes; and their heavenly 
Father feedeth them, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these — and will He not much more feed us, that are of more 
value than many sparrows? ” 

“And will you live here, shut out from all Christian ordinances? ” 

“ Christian ordinances? Adam and Eve had no parsons in Para- 
dise. The Lord was their priest, and the Lord was their shepherd, 
and he’ll be ours too. But go your ways, sir, and send up Sir John 
Brimblecombe, and let him marry us here Church fashion, ( though we 
have sworn troth to each other before God already), and let him give 
us the Holy Sacrament once and for all, and then read the funeral 
service over us, and go his ways, and count us for dead, sir — for dead 
we are to the wicked worthless world we came out of three years ago. 
And when the Lord chooses to call us, the little birds will cover us with 
leaves, as they did the babies in the wood, and fresher flowers will 
grow out of our graves, sir, than out of yours in that bare Northam 
churchyard there beyond the weary, weary, weary sea.” 

His voice died away to a murmur, and his head sank on his breast. 

Amyas stood spellbound. The effect of the narcotic was all but 
miraculous in his eyes. The sustained eloquence, the novel richness of 
diction in one seemingly drowned in sensual sloth, were in his eyes the 
possession of some evil spirit. And yet he could not answer the Evil 
One. His English heart, full of the divine instinct of duty and public 
spirit, told him that it must be a lie: but how to prove it a lie? And he 
stood for full ten minutes searching for an answer, which seemed to fly 
farther and farther off the more he sought for it. 

His eye glanced upon Ayacanora. The two girls were whispering 
to her smilingly. He saw one of them glance a look towaid him, and 
then say something, which raised a beautiful blush in the maiden s face. 


442 


Westward Ho ! 

With a playful blow at the speaker, she turned away. Amyas knew 
instinctively that they were giving her the same advice as Ebsworthy 
had given to him. Oh, how beautiful she was! Might not the rene- 
gades have some reason on their side after all? 

He shuddered at the thought: but he could not shake it off. It 
glided in like some gaudy snake, and wreathed its coils round all his 
heart and brain. He drew back to the other side of the lawn, and 
thought and thought 

Should he ever get home? If he did, might he not get home a 
beggar? Beggar or rich, he would still have to face his mother, to go 
through that meeting, to tell that tale, perhaps, to hear those re- 
proaches, the forecast of which had weighed on him like a dark thun- 
der-cloud for two weary years; to wipe out which by some desperate 
deed of glory he had wandered the wilderness, and wandered in vain. 

Could he not settle here? He need not be a savage. He and his 
might Christianize, civilize, teach equal law, mercy in war, chivalry to 
women; found a community which might be hereafter as strong a bar- 
rier against the encroachments of the Spaniard, as Manoa itself would 
have been. Who knew the wealth of the surrounding forests? Even 
if there were no gold, there were boundless vegetable treasures. What 
might he not export down the rivers? This might be the nucleus of a 
great commercial settlement — 

And yet, was even that worth while? To settle here only to tor- 
ment his soul with fresh schemes, fresh ambitions; not to rest, but only 
to change one labor for another? Was not your dreamer right? Did 
they not all need rest? What if they each sat down among the flowers, 
beside an Indian bride? They might live like Christians, while they 
lived like the birds of heaven. — 

What a dead silence! He looked up and round; the birds had 
ceased to chirp; the parroquets were hiding behind the leaves; the 
monkeys were clustered motionless upon the highest twigs; only out 
of the far depths of the forest, the campanero gave its solemn toll, once, 
twice, thrice, like a great death-knell rolling down from far cathedral 
towers. Was it an omen? He looked up hastily at Ayacanora. She 
was watching him earnestly. Heavens ! was she waiting for his deci *. 
sion? Both dropped their eyes. The decision was not to come from 
them. 

A rustle! a roar! a shriek! and Amyas lifted his eyes in time to see a 
huge dark bar shoot from the crag above the dreamer’s head, among 
the group of girls. 


How Amyas was tempted 443 

A dull crash, as the group flew asunder; and in the midst, upon the 
ground, the tawny; limbs of one were writhing beneath the fangs of a 
black jaguar, the rarest and most terrible of the forest kings. Of 
one? But of which? Was it Ayacanora? And sword in hand, 
Amyas rushed madly forward: before he reached the spot those tor- 
tured limbs were still. 

It was not Ayacanora; for with a shriek which rang through the 
woods, the wretched dreamer, wakened thus at last, sprang up and felt 
for his sword. Fool! he had left it in his hammock! Screaming the 
name of his dead bride, he rushed on the jaguar, as it crouched above 
its prey, and seizing its head with teeth and nails, worried it, in the 
ferocity of his madness, like a mastiff-dog. 

The brute wrenched its head from his grasp, and raised its dreadful 
paw. Another moment, and the husband’s corpse would have lain by 
the wife’s. 

But high in air gleamed Amyas’s blade; down, with all the weight of 
his huge body and strong arm, fell that most trusty steel; the head of 
the jaguar dropped grinning on its victim’s corpse; 

“And all stood still, who saw him fall, 

While men might count a score.” 

“ O Lord Jesus,” said Amyas to himself, “ thou hast answered the 
devil for me! And this is the selfish rest for which I would have bar- 
tered the rest which comes by working where thou hast put me!” 

They bore away the lithe corpse into the forest, and buried it under 
soft moss and virgin mould; and so the fair clay vvas transfigured into 
fairer flowers, and the poor, gentle, untaught spirit returned to God 

who gave it. . 

And then Amyas went sadly and silently back again, and Parra- 
combe walked after him, like one who walks in sleep. 

Ebsworthy, sobered by the shock, entreated to come too: but 
Amyas forbade him gently, — 

« n 0 , ]ad, you are forgiven. God forbid that I should judge you or 
any man ! Sir John shall come up and marry you ; and then, if it still 
be your will to stay, the Lord forgive you, if you be wrong; in the 
meanwhile, we will leave with you all that we can spare. Stay here, 
and pray to God to make you, and me too, wiser men.” 

And so Amyas departed. He had come out stern and proud; but 
he came back again like a little child. , , 

Three days after, Parracombe was dead. Once in camp, he seemed 


444 


Westward Ho i 

unable to eat or move, and having received absolution and communion 
from good Sir John, faded away without disease or pain, “ babbling of 
green fields,” and murmuring the name of his lost Indian bride. 

Amyas, too, sought ghostly counsel of Sir John, and told him all 
which had passed through his mind. 

“ It was indeed a temptation of Diabolus,” said that simple sage; 
“ for he is by his very name the divider, who sets man against man, 
and tempts one to care only for oneself, and forget kin and country, 
and duty and queen. But you have resisted him, Captain Leigh, like 
a true-born Englishman, as you always are, and he has fled from you. 
But that is no reason why we should not flee from him too; and so I 
think the sooner we are out of this place, and at work again, the better 
for all our souls.” 

To which Amyas most devoutly said, “Amen!” If Ayacanora 
were the daughter of ten thousand Incas, he must get out of her way as 
soon as possible. 

The next day he announced his intention to march once more ; and 
to his delight found the men ready enough to move toward the Spanish 
settlements. One thing they needed: gunpowder for their muskets. 
But that they must make as they went along; that is, if they could get 
the materials. Charcoal they could procure, enough to set the world 
on fire: but nitre they had not yet seen; perhaps they should find it 
among the hills; while as for sulphur, any brave man could get that 
where there were volcanoes. Who had not heard how one of Cortes’ 
Spaniards, in like need, was lowered in a basket down the smoking 
crater of Popocatepetl, till he had gathered sulphur enough to conquer 
an empire? And what a Spaniard could do, an Englishman could do, 
or they would know the reason why. And if they found none — why 
cloth-yard arrows had done Englishmen’s work many a time already, 
and they could do it again, not to mention those same blow-guns and 
their arrows of curare poison, which, though they might be useless 
against Spaniards’ armor, were far more valuable than muskets for 
procuring food, from the simple fact of their silence. 

One thing remained; to invite their Indian friends to join them. 
And that was done in due form the next day. 

Ayacanora was consulted, of course; and by the Piache, too, who 
was glad enough to be rid of the rival preacher, and his unpleasantly 
good news that men need not worship the devil, because there was a 
good God above them. The maiden sang most melodious assent; the 
whole tribe echoed it; and all went smoothly enough, till the old 


How Amyas was tempted 445 

Cacique observed, that, before starting, a compact should be made 
between the allies, as to their share of the booty. 

Nothing could be more reasonable; and Amyas asked him to name 
his terms. 

“ You take the gold, and we will take the prisoners.” 

“ And what will you do with them? ” asked Amyas, who recollected 
poor J ohn Oxenham’s hapless compact made in like case. 

“ Eat them,” quoth the Cacique, innocently enough. 

Amyas whistled. 

“ Humph! ” said Cary. “ The old proverb comes true — ‘ the more 
the merrier: but the fewer the better fare/ I think we will do without 
our red friends for this time.” 

Ayacanora, who had been preaching war like a very Boadicea, was 
much vexed. 

“ Do you too want to dine off roast Spaniards? ” asked Amyas. 

She shook her head, and denied the imputation with much disgust. 

Amyas was relieved; he had shrunk from joining the thought of so 
fair a creature, however degraded, with the horrors of cannibalism. 

But the Cacique was a man of business, and held out staunchly. 

“ Is it fair? ” he asked. “ The white man loves gold; and he gets it. 
The poor Indian, what use is gold to him? He only wants something 
to eat, and he must eat his enemies. What else will pay him for going 
so far through the forests hungry and thirsty? You will get all, and 
the Omaguas will get nothing.” 

The argument was unanswerable; and the next day they started 
without the Indians, while John Brimblecombe heaved many an honest 
sigh at leaving them to darkness, the devil, and the holy trumpet. 

And Ayacanora? 

When their departure was determined, she shut herself up in her 
hut, and appeared no more. Great was the weeping, howling, and 
leave-taking on the part of the simple Indians, and loud the entreaties 
to come again, bring them a message from Amalivaca’s daughter be- 
yond the seas, and help them to recover their lost land of Papamene: 
but Ayacanora took no part in them; and Amyas left her, wondering 
at her absence, but joyful and light-hearted at having escaped the 
rocks of the Sirens, and being at work once more. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

How they Took ttje Goia -train . 

“God will relent, and quit thee all thy debt, 

Who ever more approves, and more accepts 
Him who imploring mercy sues for life, 

Than who self-rigorous chooses death as due, 

Which argues over- just, and self -displeased 
For self-offense, more than for God off ended.’ ’ 

Samson Agonistes. 

A fortnight or more has passed in severe toil ; but not more severe 
than they have endured many a time before. Bidding farewell once 
and forever to the green ocean of the eastern plains, they have crossed 
the Cordillera; they have taken a longing glance at the city of Santa 
Fe, lying in the midst of rich gardens on its lofty mountain plateau, 
and have seen, as was to be expected, that it was far too large a place 
for any attempt of theirs. But they have not altogether thrown away 
their time. Their Indian lad has discovered that a gold-train is going 
down from Santa Fe toward the Magdalena; and they are waiting for 
it beside the miserable rut which serves for a road, encamped in a for- 
est of oaks which would make them almost fancy themselves back 
again in Europe, were it not for the tree-ferns which form the under- 
growth ; and were it not, too, for the deep gorges opening at their very 
feet ; in which, while their brows are swept by the cool breezes of a tem- 
perate zone, they can see far below, dim through their everlasting 
vapor-bath of rank hot steam, the mighty forms and gorgeous colors of 
the tropic forest. 

They have pitched their camp among the tree-ferns, above a spot 
where the path winds along a steep hillside, with a sheer cliff below of 
many a hundred feet. There was a road there once, perhaps, when 
Cundinamarca was a civilized and cultivated kingdom; but all which 
Spanish misrule has left of it are a few steps slipping from their places 
at the bottom of a narrow ditch of mud. It has gone the way of the 
aqueducts and bridges and post-houses, the gardens and the llama- 
flocks of that strange empire. In the mad search for gold, every art 

































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The gold train 


The Gold-train 447 

of civilization has fallen to decay, save architecture alone ; and that sur- 
vives only in the splendid cathedrals which have risen upon the ruins of 
the temples of the Sun, in honor of a milder Pantheon; if, indeed, that 
can be called a milder one which demands (as we have seen already) 
human sacrifices, unknown to the gentle nature-worship of the Incas. 

And now, the rapid tropic vegetation has reclaimed its old domains, 
and Amyas and his crew are as utterly alone, within a few miles of an 
important Spanish settlement, as they would be in the solitudes of the 
Orinoco or the Amazon. 

In the meanwhile, all their attempts to find sulphur and nitre have 
been unavailing; and they have been forced to depend after all (much 
to Yeo’s disgust) upon their swords and arrows. Be it so: Drake took 
Nombre de Dios and the gold-train there with no better weapons; and 
they may do as much. 

So, having blocked up the road above by felling a large tree across 
it, they sit there among the flowers chewing cocoa, in default of food 
and drink, and meditating among themselves the cause of a myste- 
rious roar, which has been heard nightly in their wake ever since they 
left the banks of the Meta. Jaguar it is not, nor monkey: it is unlike 
any sound they know; and why should it follow them? However, 
they are in the land of wonders; and, moreover, the gold-train is far 
more important than any noise. 

At last, up from beneath there was a sharp crack and a loud cry. 
The crack was neither the snapping of a branch, nor the tapping of a 
woodpecker; the cry was neither the scream of a parrot, nor the howl 
of the monkey, — 

“ That was a whip’s crack,” said Yeo, “ and a woman’s wail. They 
are close here, lads ! ” 

“A woman’s? Do they drive women in their gangs?” asked 
Amyas. 

“ Why not, the brutes? There they are, sir. Did you see their 
basnets glitter? ” 

“ Men! ” said Amyas, in a low voice, “ I trust you all not to shoot 
till I do. Then give them one arrow, out swords, and at them! Pass 
the word along.” 

Up they came, slowly, and all hearts beat loud at their coming. 

First, about twenty soldiers, only one-half of whom were on foot; 
the other half being borne, incredible as it may seem, each in a chair 
on the back of a single Indian, while those who marched had consigned 
their heaviest armor and their arquebuses into the hands of attendant 


448 Westward Ho I 

slaves, who were each pricked on at will by the pikes of the soldier 
behind them. 

“ The men are mad to let their ordnance out of their hands.” 

“ Oh, sir, an Indian will pray to an arquebus not to shoot him; be 
sure their artillery is safe enough,” said Yeo. 

“ Look at the proud villains,” whispered another, “ to make dumb 
beasts of human creatures like that! ” 

“ Ten shot,” counted the business-like Amyas, “ and ten pikes; Will 
can tackle them up above.” 

Last of this troop came some inferior officer, also in his chair, who, 
as he went slowly up the hill, with his face turned toward the gang 
which followed, drew every other second the cigar from his lips, to in- 
spirit them with those pious ejaculations to the various objects of his 
worship, divine, human, anatomic, wooden and textile, which earned 
for the pious Spaniards of the sixteenth century the uncharitable im- 
putation of being at once the most fetiche-ridden idolaters, and the 
most abominable swearers of all Europeans. 

“ The blasphemous dog! ” said Yeo, fumbling at his bowstring, as if 
he longed to send an arrow through him. But Amyas had hardly laid 
his finger on the impatient veteran’s arm, when another procession 
followed, which made them forget all else. 

A sad and hideous sight it was: yet one too common even then in 
those remoter districts, where the humane edicts were disregarded, 
which the prayers of Dominican friars (to their everlasting honor be it 
spoken) had wrung from the Spanish sovereigns; and which the legis- 
lation of that most wise, virtuous, and heroic Inquisitor (paradoxical as 
the words may seem), Pedro de la Gasca, had carried into effect in 
Peru, — futile and tardy alleviations of cruelties and miseries unexam- 
pled in the history of Christendom, or perhaps on earth, save in the 
conquests of Sennacherib and Zinghis-Khan. But on the frontiers, 
where negroes were imported to endure the toil which was found fatal 
to the Indian, and all Indian tribes convicted (or suspected) of canni- 
balism were hunted down for the salvation of their souls and the en- 
slavement of their bodies, such scenes as these were still too common ; 
and, indeed, if we are to judge from Humboldt’s impartial account, 
were not very much amended even at the close of the last century, in 
those much-boasted Jesuit missions in which (as many of them as ex- 
isted anywhere but on paper) military tyranny was superadded to 
monastic, and the Gospel preached with fire and sword, almost as 
shamelessly as by the first Conquistadores. 


449 


The Gold-train 


A line of Indians, Negroes, and Zambos, naked, emaciated, scarred 
with whips and fetters, and chained together by their left wrists, toiled 
upward, panting and perspiring under the burden of a basket held up 
by a strap which passed across their foreheads. Yeo’s sneer was but 
too just; there were not only old men and youths among them, but 
women; slender young girls, mothers with children running at their 
knee; and, at the sight, a low murmur of indignation rose from the 
ambushed Englishmen, worthy of the free and righteous hearts of 
those days, when Raleigh could appeal to man and God, on the ground 
of a common humanity, in behalf of the outraged heathens of the New 
World: when Englishmen still knew that man was man, and that the 
instinct of freedom was the righteous voice of God; ere the hapless 
seventeenth century had brutalized them also, by bestowing on them, 
amid a hundred other bad legacies, the fatal gift of negro-slaves. 

But the first forty, so Amyas counted, bore on their backs a burden 
which made all, perhaps, but him and Yeo, forget even the wretches 
who bore it. Each basket contained a square package of carefully 
corded hide; the look whereof friend Amyas knew full well. 

“ What’s in they, captain? ” 

“ Gold! ” And at that magic word all eyes were strained greedily 
forward, and such a rustle followed, that Amyas, in the very face of 


detection, had to whisper — 

“ Be men, be men, or you will spoil all yet! ” 

The last twenty, or so, of the Indians bore larger baskets, but more 
lightly freighted, seemingly with manioc, and maize-bread, and other 
food for the party; and after them came, with their bearers and attend- 
ants, just twenty soldiers more, followed by the officer in charge, who 
sm,iled away in his chair, and twirled two huge mustachios, thinking of 
nothing less than of the English arrows which were itching to be away 
and through his ribs. The ambush was complete; the only question, 

how and when to begin? . 

Amyas had a shrinking, which all will understand, from drawing 
bow in cold blood on men so utterly unsuspicious and defenseless, even 
though in the very act of devilish cruelty for devilish cruelty it was, 
as three or four drivers armed with whips, lingered up and down the 
slowly-staggering file of Indians, and avenged every moments 
lagging, even every stumble, by a blow of the cruel manati-hide, which 
cracked like a pistol-shot against the naked limbs of the silent and un- 
complaining victim. , 

Suddenly the casus belli, as usually happens, arose of its own accord. 


450 


Westward Ho I 

The last but one of the chained line was an old gray-headed man, 
followed by a slender graceful girl of some eighteen years old, and 
Amyas’s heart yearned over them as they came up. Just as they 
passed, the foremost of the file had rounded the corner above; there 
was a bustle, and a voice shouted, “Halt, Senors! there is a tree 
across the path! ” 

“A tree across the path?” bellowed the officer, with a variety of 
passionate addresses to the Mother of Heaven, the fiends of hell, Saint 
Yago of Compostella, and various other personages; while the line of 
trembling Indians, told to halt above, and driven on by blows below, 
surged up and down upon the ruinous steps of the Indian road, until 
the poor old man fell groveling on his face. 

The officer leaped down, and hurried upward to see what had 
happened. Of course, he came across the old man. 

“ Sin peccado concebida! Grandfather of Beelzebub, is this a place 
to lie worshipping your fiends? ” and he pricked the prostrate wretch 
with the point of his sword. 

The old man tried to rise : but the weight on his head was too much 
for him; he fell again, and lay motionless. 

The driver applied the manati-hide across his loins, once, twice, with 
fearful force; but even that specific was useless. 

“ Gastado, Senor Capitan,” said he, with a shrug. “ Used up. 
He has been failing these three months! ” 

“ What does the intendant mean, by sending me out with worn-out 
cattle like these? Forward there!” shouted he. “Clear away the 
tree, Senors, and I’ll soon clear the chain. Hold it up, Pedrillo ! ” 

The driver held up the chain, which was fastened to the old manV 
wrist. The officer stepped back, and flourished round his head a 
Toledo blade, whose beauty made Amyas break the Tenth Command- 
ment on the spot. 

The man was a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, high-bred man; 
and Amyas thought that he was going to display the strength of his 
arm, and the temper of his blade, in severing the chain at one stroke. 

Even he was not prepared for the recondite fancies of a Spanish 
adventurer, worthy son or nephew of those first conquerors, who used 
to try the keenness of their swords upon the living bodies of Indians, 
and regale themselves at meals with the odor of roasting Caciques. 

The blade gleamed in the air, once, twice, and fell: not on the chain, 
but on the wrist which it fettered. There was a shriek — a crimson 
flash — and the chain and its prisoner were parted indeed. 


451 


The Gold-train 

One moment more, and Amyas’s arrow would have been through 
the throat of the murderer, who paused, regarding his workmanship 
with a satisfied smile; but vengeance was not to come from him. 

Quick and fierce as a tiger-cat, the girl sprang on the ruffian, and 
with the intense strength of passion, clasped him in her arms, and 
leaped with him from the narrow ledge into the abyss below. 

There was a rush, a shout; all faces were bent over the precipice. 
The girl hung by her chained wrist: the officer was gone. There was 
a moment’s awful silence; and then Amyas heard his body crashing 
through the tree-tops far below. 

“ Haul her up! Hew her in pieces! Bum the witch!” and the 
driver seizing the chain, pulled at it with all his might, while all 
springing from their chairs, stooped over the brink. 

Now was the time for Amyas! Heaven had delivered them into 
his hands. Swift and sure, at ten yards off, his arrow rushed through 
the body of the driver, and then, with a roar as of the leaping lion, he 
sprang like an avenging angel into the midst of the astonished ruf- 
fians. 

His first thought was for the girl. In a moment, by sheer strength, 
he had jerked her safely up into the road; while the Spaniards recoiled 
right and left, fancying him for the moment some mountain giant or 
supernatural foe. His hurrah undeceived them in an instant, and a 
cry of “ English ! Lutheran dogs ! ” arose, but arose too late. The 
men of Devon had followed their captain’s lead: a storm of arrows left 
five Spaniards dead, and a dozen more wounded, and down leaped Sal- 
vation Yeo, his white hair streaming behind him, with twenty good 
swords more, and the work of death began. 

The Spaniards fought like lions ; but they had no time to fix their 
arquebuses on the crutches; no room, in that narrow path, to use their 
pikes. The English had the wall of them; and to have the wall there 
was to have the foe’s life at their mercy. Five desperate minutes, and 
not a living Spaniard stood upon those steps; and certainly no living 
one lay in the green abyss below. Two only, who were behind the 
rest, happening to be in full armor, escaped without mortal wound, and 
fled down the hill again. 

“After them! Michael Evans and Simon Heard; and catch them, 
if they run a league.” 

The two long and lean Clovelly men, active as deer from forest 
training, ran two feet for the Spaniards’ one; and in ten minutes re- 
turnedrhaving done their work; while Amyas and his men hurried past 


452 


Westward Ho ! 

the Indians, to help Cary and the party forward, where shouts and 
musket shots announced a sharp affray. 

Their arrival settled the matter. All the Spaniards fell but three 
or four, who scrambled down the crannies of the cliff. 

Let not one of them escape! Slay them as Israel slew Amalek! ” 
cried Yeo, as he bent over; and ere the wretches could reach a place 
of shelter, an arrow was quivering in each body, as it rolled lifeless 
down the rooks. 

“ Now, then ! Loose the Indians ! ” 

They found armorers’ tools on one of the dead bodies, and it was 
done. 

“ We are your friends,” said Amyas. “All we ask is that you shall 
help us to carry this gold down to the Magdalena, and then you are 
free.” 

Some few of the younger groveled at his knees, and kissed his feet, 
hailing him as the child of the Sun: but the most part kept a stolid in- 
difference, and when freed from their fetters, sat quietly down where 
they stood, staring into vacancy. The iron had entered too deeply 
into their soul. They seemed past hope, enjoyment, even under- 
standing. 

But the young girl, who was last of all in the line, as soon as she 
was loosed, sprang to her father’s body, speaking no word, lifted it in 
her thin arms, laid it across her knees, kissed the fallen lips, stroked 
the furrowed cheeks, murmured inarticulate sounds like the cooing of 
a woodland dove, of which none knew the meaning but she, and he 
who heard not, for his soul had long since fled. Suddenly the truth 
flashed on her; silent as ever, she drew one long heaving breath, and 
rose erect, the body in her arms. 

Another moment, and she had leaped into the abyss. 

They watched her dark and slender limbs, twined closely round the 
old man’s corpse, turn over, and over, and over, till a crash among the 
leaves, and a scream among the birds, told that she had reached the 
trees ; and the green roof hid her from their view. 

“ Brave lass ! ” shouted a sailor. 

“ The Lord forgive her! ” said Yeo. “ But, your worship, we must 
have these rascals’ ordnance.” 

“And their clothes too, Yeo, if we wish to get down the Magdalena 
unchallenged. Now listen, my masters all! We have won, by God’s 
good grace, gold enough to serve us the rest of our lives, and that 
without losing a single man ; and may yet win more, if we be wise, and 


453 


The Gold-train 

He thinks good. But oh, my friends, remember Mr. Oxenham and 
his crew; and do not make God’s gift our ruin, by faithlessness, or 
greediness, or any mutinous haste.” 

You shall find none in us! ” cried several men. “ We know your 
worship. We can trust our general.” 

“ Thank God! ” said Amyas. “ Now then, it will be no shame or 
sin to make the Indians carry it, saving the women, whom God forbid 
we should burden. But we must pass through the very heart of the 
Spanish settlements, and by the town of Saint Martha itself. So the 
clothes and weapons of these Spaniards we must have, let it cost us 
what labor it may. How many lie in the road? ” 

“ Thirteen here, and about ten up above,” said Cary. 

“ Then there are near twenty missing. Who will volunteer to go 
down over cliff, and bring up the spoil of them? ” 

“ I, and I, and I ; ” and a dozen stepped out, as they did always 
when Amyas wanted anything done; for the simple reason that they 
knew that he meant to help at the doing of it himself. 

“Very well, then, follow me. Sir John, take the Indian lad for 
your interpreter, and try and comfort the souls of these poor heathens. 
Tell them that they shall all be free.” 

“ Why, who is that comes up the road? ” 

All eyes were turned in the direction of which he spoke. And, 
wonder of wonders ! up came none other than Ayacanora herself, blow- 
gun in hand, bow on back, and bedecked in all her feather garments, 
which last were rather the worse for a fortnight’s woodland travel. 

All stood mute with astonishment, as, seeing Amyas, she uttered a 
cry of joy, quickened her pace into a run, and at last fell panting and 
exhausted at his feet. 

“ I have found you! ” she said; “ you ran away from me, but you 
could not escape me!” And she fawned round Amyas, like a dog 
who has found his master, and then sat down on the bank, and burst 
into wild sobs. 

“ God help us! ” said Amyas, clutching his hair, as he looked down 
upon the beautiful weeper. “ What am I to do with her, over and 
above all these poor heathens? ” 

But there was no time to be lost, and over the cliff he scrambled; 
while the girl, seeing that the main body of the English remained, sat 
down on a point of rock to watch him. 

After half an hour’s hard work, the weapons, clothes, and armor of 
the fallen Spaniards were hauled up the cliff, and distributed in 


454 


Westward Ho I 

bundles among the men; the rest of the corpses were thrown over the 
precipice, and they started again upon their road toward the Magda- 
lena, while Yeo snorted like a war-horse who smells the battle, at the 
delight of once more handling powder and ball. 

“We can face the world now, sir! Why not go back and try 
Santa Fe, after all? ” 

But Amy as thought that enough was as good as a feast, and they 
held on downward, while the slaves followed, without a sign of grati- 
tude, but meekly obedient to their new masters, and testifying now 
and then by a sign or a grunt, their surprise at not being beaten, or 
made to carry their captors. Some, however, caught sight of the little 
calabashes of cocoa which the English carried. That woke them from 
their torpor, and they began coaxing abjectly (and not in vain) for a 
taste of that miraculous herb, which would not only make food un- 
necessary, and enable their panting lungs to endure that keen moun- 
tain air; but would rid them, for a while at least, of the fallen Indian’s 
most unpitying foe, the malady of thought. 

As the cavalcade turned the corner of the mountain, they paused 
for one last look at the scene of that fearful triumph. Lines of 
vultures were already streaming out of infinite space, as if created 
suddenly for the occasion. A few hours and there would be no trace 
of that fierce fray, but a few white bones amid untrodden beds of 
flowers. 

And now Amyas had time to ask Ayacanora the meaning of this her 
strange appearance. He wished her anywhere but where she was: 
but now that she was here, what heart could be so hard as not to take 
pity on the poor wild thing? And Amyas as he spoke to her, had, 
perhaps, a tenderness in his tone, from very fear of hurting her, which 
he had never used before. Passionately she told him how she had 
followed on their track day and night, and had every evening made 
sounds, as loud as she dared, in hopes of their hearing her, and either 
waiting for her, or coming back to see what caused the noise. 

Amyas now recollected the strange roaring which had followed 
them. 

“ Noises? What did you make them with? ” 

Ayacanora lifted her finger with an air of most self-satisfied mys- 
tery; and then drew cautiously from under her feather cloak an object 
at which Amyas had hard work to keep his countenance. 

“ Look! ” whispered she, as if half afraid that the thing itself should 
hear her. “ I have it — the holy trumpet! ” 


455 


The Gold-train 

There it was verily, that mysterious bone of contention; a handsome 
earthen tube some two feet long, neatly glazed, and painted with 
quaint greeques and figures of animals; a relic evidently of some 
civilization now extinct. 

Brimblecombe rubbed his little fat hands. “ Brave maid ! you have 
cheated Satan this time,” quoth he; while Yeo advised that the 
“ idolatrous relic ” should be forthwith “ hove over cliff.” 

“ Let be,” said Amyas. “ What is the meaning of this, Ayacanora? 
And why have you followed us? ” 

She told a long story, from which Amyas picked up, as far as he 
could understand her, that that trumpet had been for years the tor- 
ment of her life; the one thing in the tribe superior to her; the one 
thing which she was not allowed to see, because, forsooth, she was a 
woman. So she determined to show them that a woman was as good 
as a man; and hence her hatred of marriage, and her Amazonian 
exploits. But still the Piache would not show her that trumpet, or 
tell her where it was: and as for going to seek it, even she feared the 
superstitious wrath of the tribe at such a profanation. But the day 
after the English went, the Piache chose to express his joy at their 
departure; whereon, as was to be expected, a fresh explosion between 
master and pupil, which ended, she confessed, in her burning the old 
rogue’s hut over his head, from which he escaped with loss of all his 
con juring-tackle, and fled raging into the woods, vowing that he would 
carry off the trumpet to the neighboring tribe. Whereon by a sudden 
impulse, the young lady took plenty of cocoa, her weapons, and her 
feathers, started on his trail, and ran him to earth just as he was un- 
veiling the precious mystery. At which sight (she confessed) she 
was horribly afraid, and half inclined to run: but, gathering courage 
from the thought that the white men used to laugh at the whole matter, 
she rushed upon the hapless conjuror, and bore off her prize in 
triumph; and there it was! 

“ I hope you have not killed him? ” said Amyas. 

“ I did beat him a little; but I thought you would not let me kill 
him.” 

Amyas was half amused with her confession of his authority over 
her: but she went on, — 

“And then I dare not go back to the Indians; so I was forced to 
come after you.” 

“And is that, then, your only reason for coming after us?” asked 
stupid Amyas. 


456 


Westward Ho ! 

He had touched some secret chord — though what it was he was too 
busy to inquire. The girl drew herself up proudly, blushing scarlet, 
and said — 

“ You never tell lies. Do you think that I would tell lies? ” 

On which she fell to the rear, and followed them steadfastly, speak- 
ing to no one, but evidently determined to follow them to the world’s 
end. 

They soon left the high road; and for several days held on down- 
ward, hewing their path slowly and painfully through the thick under- 
wood. On the evening of the fourth day they had reached the margin 
of a river, at a point where it seemed broad and still enough for naviga- 
tion. For those three days they had not seen a trace of human beings, 
and the spot seemed lonely enough for them to encamp without fear 
of discovery, and begin the making of their canoes. They began to 
spread themselves along the stream, in search of the soft-wooded trees 
proper for their purpose; but hardly had their search begun, when, 
in the midst of a dense thicket, they came upon a sight which filled them 
with astonishment. Beneath a honeycombed cliff, which supported 
one enormous cotton-tree, was a spot of some thirty yards square 
sloping down to the stream, planted in rows with magnificent banana- 
plants, full twelve feet high, and bearing among their huge waxy 
leaves clusters of ripening fruit; while, under their mellow shade, 
yams and cassava plants were flourishing luxuriantly, the whole being 
surrounded by a hedge of orange and scarlet flowers. There it lay, 
streaked with long shadows from the setting sun, while a cool southern 
air rustled in the cotton-tree, and flapped to and fro the great banana- 
leaves; a tiny paradise of art and care. But where was its inhabitant ? 

Aroused by the noise of their approach, a figure issued from a cave 
in the rocks, and, after gazing at them for a moment, came down the 
garden toward them. He was a tall and stately old man, whose 
snow-white beard and hair covered his chest and shoulders, while his 
lower limbs were wrapped in Indian-web. Slowly and solemnly he 
approached, a staff in one hand, a string of beads in the other, the 
living likeness of some old Hebrew prophet, or anchorite of ancient 
legend. He bowed courteously to Amyas (who of course returned 
his salute) , and was in act to speak, when his eye fell upon the Indians, 
who were laying down their burdens in a heap under the trees. His 
mild countenance assumed instantly an expression of the acutest sor- 
row and displeasure; and, striking his hands together, he spoke in 
Spanish, — 


The Gold-train 457 

Alas ! miserable me ! Alas ! unhappy Senors ! Do my old eyes de- 
ceive me, and is it one of those evil visions of the past which haunt my 
dreams by night: or has the accursed thirst of gold, the ruin of my 
race, penetrated even into this my solitude? Oh, Senors, Senors, 
know you not that you bear with you your own poison, your own 
familiar fiend, the root of every evil? And is it not enough for you, 
Senors, to load yourselves with the wedge of Achan, and partake his 
doom, but you must make these hapless heathens the victims of your 
greed and cruelty, and forestall for them on earth those torments which 
may await their unbaptized souls hereafter? ” 

“We have preserved, and not enslaved these Indians, ancient 
Senor,” said Amyas proudly; “ and to-morrow will see them as free 
as the birds over our heads.” 

“ Free? Then you cannot be countrymen of mine! But pardon 
an old man, my son, if he has spoken too hastily in the bitterness of 
his own experience. But who and whence are you? And why are 
you bringing into this lonely wilderness that gold — for I know too 
well the shape of those accursed packets, which would God that I had 
never seen ! ” 

“ What we are, reverend sir, matters little, as long as we behave to 
you as the young should to the old. As for our gold, it will be a curse 
or a blessing to us, I conceive, just as we use it well or ill; and so is a 
man’s head, or his hand, or any other thing; but that is no reason for 
cutting off his limbs for fear of doing harm with them; neither is it 
for throwing away those packages, which, by your leave, we shall 
deposit in one of these caves. We must be your neighbors, I fear, for 
a day or two; but I can promise you that your garden shall be re- 
spected, on condition that you do not inform any human soul of our 
being here.” 

“ God forbid, Sefior, that I should try to increase the number of my 
visitors, much less to bring hither strife and blood, of which I have 
seen too much already. As you have come in peace, in peace depart. 
Leave me alone with God and my penitence, and may the Lord have 
mercy on you!” 

And he was about to withdraw, when, recollecting himself, he 
turned suddenly to Amyas again, — 

“ Pardon me, Senor, if, after forty years of utter solitude, I shrink 
at first from the conversation of human beings, and forget, in the 
habitual shyness of a recluse, the duties of a hospitable gentleman of 
Spain. My garden, and all which it produces, is at your service. 


458 


Westward Ho I 

Only let me entreat that these poor Indians shall have their share ; for 
heathens though they be, Christ died for them; and I cannot but 
cherish in my soul some secret hope that He did not die in vain.” 

“ God forbid! ” said Brimblecombe. “ They are no worse than we, 
for aught I see, whatsoever their fathers may have been; and they have 
fared no worse than we since they have been with us, nor will, I 
promise you.” 

The good fellow did not tell that he had been starving himself for 
the last three days to cram the children with his own rations ; and that 
the sailors, and even Amyas, had been going out of their way every 
five minutes, to get fruit for their new pets. 

A camp was soon formed; and that evening the old hermit asked 
Amyas, Cary, and Brimblecombe, to come up into his cavern. 

They went; and after the accustomed compliments had passed, sat 
down on mats upon the ground, while the old man stood, leaning 
against a slab of stone surmounted by a rude wooden cross, which 
evidently served him as a place of prayer. He seemed restless and 
anxious, as if he waited for them to begin the conversation; while they, 
in their turn, waited for him. At last, when courtesy would not allow 
him to be silent any longer, he began with a faltering voice, — 

“ You may be equally surprised, Sefiors, at my presence in such a 
spot, and at my asking you to become my guests even for one even- 
ing, while I have no better hospitality to offer you.” 

“ It is superfluous, Senor, to offer us food in your own habitation 
when you have already put all that you possess at our command.” 

“ True, Senors: and my motive for inviting you was, perhaps, some- 
what of a selfish one. I am possessed by a longing to unburthen my 
heart of a tale which I never yet told to man; and which I fear can 
give to you nothing but pain: and yet I will entreat you, of your 
courtesy, to hear of that which you cannot amend, simply in mercy 
to a man who feels that he must confess to some one, or die as miser- 
able as he has lived. And I believe my confidence will not be mis- 
placed, when it is bestowed upon you. I have been a cavalier, even 
as you are; and strange as it may seem, that which I have to tell I 
would sooner impart to the ears of a soldier than of a priest ; because 
it will then sink into souls which can at least sympathize, though they 
cannot absolve. And you, cavaliers, I perceive to be noble, from your 
very looks; to be valiant, by your mere presence in this hostile land; 
and to be gentle, courteous, and prudent, by your conduct this day to 
me and to your captives. Will you then hear an old man’s tale? I 


459 


The Gold-train 

am, as you see, full of words; for speech, from long disuse, is difficult 
to me, and I fear at every sentence lest my stiffened tongue should 
play the traitor to my worn-out brain: but if my request seems im- 
pertinent, you have only to bid me talk as a host should, of matters 
which concern his guests, and not himself.” 

The three young men, equally surprised and interested by this 
exordium, could only entreat their host to “ Use their ears as those of 
his slaves,” on which, after fresh apologies, he began, — 

“ Know, then, victorious cavaliers, that I, whom you now see here 
as a poor hermit, was formerly one of the foremost of that terrible 
band, who went with Pizarro to the conquest of Peru. Eighty years 
old am I this day, unless the calendar which I have carved upon yonder 
tree deceives me; and twenty years old was I when I sailed with that 
fierce man from Panama, to do that deed with which all earth, and 
heaven, and hell itself, I fear, has rung. How we endured, suffered, 
and triumphed; how, mad with success, and glutted with blood, we 
turned our swords against each other, I need not tell to you. For 
what gentleman of Europe knows not our glory and our shame? ” 

His hearers bowed assent. 

“ Yes; you have heard of our prowess: for glorious we were a while, 
in the sight of God and man. But I will not speak of our glory, for 
it is tarnished; nor of our wealth, for it was our poison, nor of the 
sins of my comrades, for they have expiated them; but of my own 
sins, Senors, which are more in number than the hairs of my head, 
and a burden too great to bear. Miserere Domine ! ” 

And smiting on his breast, the old warrior went on — 

“As I said, we were mad with blood; and none more mad than I. 
Surely it is no fable that men are possessed, even in this latter age, by 
devils. Why else did I rejoice in slaying? Why else was I, the 
son of a noble and truthful cavalier of Castile, among the foremost to 
urge upon my general the murder of the Inca? Why did I rejoice 
over his dying agonies? Why, when Don Ferdinando de Soto re- 
turned, and upbraided us with our villainy, did I, instead of confessing 
the sin which that noble cavalier set before us, withstand him to his 
face, ay, and would have drawn the sword on him, but that he refused 
to fight a liar, as he said that I was? ” 

“ Then Don de Soto was against the murder? So his own 
grandson told me. But I had heard of him only as a tyrant and a 
butcher.” 

“ Senor, he was compact of good and evil, as are other men: he has 


460 Westward Ho ! 

paid dearly for his sin; let us hope that he has been paid in turn for 
his righteousness.” 

John Brimblecombe shook his head at this doctrine, but did not 
speak. 

“ So you know his grandson? I trust he is a noble cavalier? ” 

Aniyas was silent; the old gentleman saw that he had touched some 
sore point, and continued, — 

“And why, again, Senors, did I after that day give myself up to 
cruelty as to a sport; yea, thought that I did God service by destroy- 
ing the creatures whom He had made; I who now dare not destroy a 
gnat, lest I harm a being more righteous than myself? Was I mad? 
If I was, how then was I all that while as prudent as I am this day ? 
But I am not here to argue, Senors, but to confess. In a word, there 
was no deed of blood done for the next few years in which I had not 
my share, if it were but within my reach. When Challcuchima was 
burned, I was consenting; when that fair girl, the wife of Inca Manco, 
was tortured to death, I smiled at the agonies at which she too smiled, 
and taunted on the soldiers, to try if I could wring one groan from her 
before she died. You know what followed; the pillage, the violence, 
the indignities offered to the virgins of the Sun. Senors, I will not 
pollute your chaste ears with what was done. But, Senors, I had a 
brother.” 

And the old man paused a while. 

“A brother — whether better or worse than me, God knows, before 
whom he has appeared ere now. At least he did not, as I did, end as 
a rebel to his king! There was a maiden in one of those convents, 
Senors, more beautiful than day; and (I blush to tell it) the two 
brothers of whom I spoke quarreled for the possession of her. They 
struck each other, Senors! Who struck first I know not; but swords 

were drawn, and The cavaliers round parted them, crying 

shame. And one of those two brothers — the one who speaks to you 
now — crying, ‘ If I cannot have her, no man shall! ’ turned the sword 
which was aimed at his brother, against that hapless maiden — and — 
hear me out, Senors, before you flee from my presence as from that 
of a monster! — stabbed her to the heart. And as she died — one mo- 
ment more, Senors, that I may confess all! — she looked up in my face 
with a smile as of heaven, and thanked me for having rid her once and 
for all from Christians and their villainy.” 

The old man paused. 

“ God forgive you, Senor! ” said Jack Brimblecombe, softly. 


461 


The Gold-train 

“ You do not then turn from me? Do not curse me? Then I will 
try you further still, Senors. I will know from human lips whether 
man can do such deeds as I have done, and yet be pitied by his kind; 
that so I may have some hope, that where man has mercy, God may 
have mercy also. Do you think that I repented at those awful words ? 
Nothing less, Senors all. No more than I did when De Soto (on 
whose soul God have mercy) called me — me, a liar! I knew myself 
a sinner; and for that very reason I was determined to sin. I would 
go on, that I might prove myself right to myself, by showing that I 
could go on, and not be struck dead from heaven. Out of mere pride, 
Senors, and self-will, I would fdl up the cup of my iniquity; and I 
filled it. 

“ You know, doubtless, Senors, how after the death of old Almagro, 
his son’s party conspired against Pizarro. Now my brother remained 
faithful to his old commander; and for that very reason, if you will 
believe it, did I join the opposite party, and gave myself up, body and 
soul, to do Almagro’s work. It was enough for me, that the brother 
who had struck me thought a man right, for me to think that man a 
devil. What Almagro’s work was, you know. He slew Pizarro. 
Murdered him, Senors, like a dog, or rather, like an old lion.” 

“ He deserved his doom,” said Amyas. 

“ Let God judge him, Senor, not we; and least of all of us I, who 
drew the first blood, and perhaps the last, that day. I, Senors, it 
was, who treacherously stabbed Francisco de Chanes on the staircase, 
and so opened the door which else had foiled us all ; and I — but I am 
speaking to men of honor, not to butchers. Suffice it that the old 
man died like a lion, and that we pulled him down, young as we were, 
like curs. 

“ Well, I followed Almagro’s fortunes. I helped to slay Alvarado. 
Call that my third murder, if you will, for if he was traitor to a traitor, 
I was traitor to a true man. Then to the war; you know how Vaca de 
Castro was sent from Spain to bring order and justice where was 
nought but chaos, and the dance of all devils. We met him on the 
hills of Chupas. Peter of Candia, the Venetian villain, pointed our 
guns false, and Almagro stabbed him to the heart. We charged with 
our lances, man against man, horse against horse. All fights I ever 
fought ” (and the old man’s eyes flashed out the ancient fire) “ were 
child’s play to that day. Our lances shivered like reeds, and we fell 
on with battle-axe and mace. None asked for quarter, and none gave 
it; friend to friend, cousin to cousin— no, nor brother, oh God! to 


462 


Westward Ho \ 

brother. We were the better armed: but numbers were on their side. 
Fat Carbajal charged our cannon like an elephant, and took them; 
but Holguin was shot down. I was with Almagro, and we swept all 
before us, inch by inch, but surely, till the night fell. Then Vaca de 
Castro, the licentiate, the clerk, the schoolman, the man of books, came 
down on us with his reserve like a whirlwind. Oh! cavaliers, did not 
God fight against us, when He let us, the men of iron, us, the heroes 
of Cuzco and Vilcaconga, be foiled by a scholar in a black gown, with 
a pen behind his ear? We were beaten. Some ran; some did not 
run, Senors; and I did not. Geronimo de Alvarado shouted to me, 
‘ We slew Pizarro! We killed the tyrant! ’ and we rushed upon the 
conqueror’s lances, to die like cavaliers. There was a gallant gentle- 
man in front of me. His lance struck me in the crest, and bore me 
over my horse’s croup: but mine, Senors, struck him full in the vizor. 
We both went to the ground together, and the battle galloped over us. 

“ I know not how long I lay, for I was stunned: but after a while 
I lifted myself. My lance was still clenched in my hand, broken but 
not parted. The point of it was in my foeman’s brain. I crawled to 
him, weary and wounded, and saw that he was a noble cavalier. He 
lay on his back, his arms spread wide. I knew that he was dead: but 
there came over me the strangest longing to see that dead man’s face. 
Perhaps I knew him. At least I could set my foot upon it, and say, 

‘ Vanquished as I am, there lies a foe! ’ I caught hold of the rivets, 
and tore his helmet off. The moon shone bright, Senors, as bright 
as she shines now — the glaring, ghastly, tell-tale moon, which shows 
man all the sins which he tries to hide; and by that moonlight, Senors, 
I beheld the dead man’s face. And it was the face of my brother! 

± ik iV aU \l£ a!/. 

'i' VP» * vjv Vr* 

“ Did you ever guess, most noble cavaliers, what Cain’s curse might 
be like? Look on me, and know! 

“ I tore off my armor and fled, as Cain fled — northward ever, till I 
should reach a land where the name of Spaniard, yea, and the name of 
Christian, which the Spaniard has caused to be blasphemed from east 
to west, should never come. I sank fainting, and waked beneath this 
rock, this tree, forty-four years ago, and I have never left them since, 
save once to obtain seeds from Indians, who knew not that I was a 
Spanish Conquistador. And may God have mercy on my soul ! ” 
The old man ceased; and his young hearers, deeply affected by his 
tale, sat silent for a few minutes. Then John Brimblecombe spoke, — 
“ You are old, sir, and I am young; and perhaps it is not my place 


463 


The Odd- train 

to counsel you. Moreover, sir, in spite of this strange dress of mine, 
I am neither more nor less than an English priest; and I suppose you 
will not be willing to listen to a heretic.” 

“ I have seen Catholics, Senor, commit too many abominations even 
with the name of God upon their lips, to shrink from a heretic if he 
speak wisely and well. At least, you are a man; and after all, my 
heart yearns more and more, the longer I sit among you, for the 
speech of beings of my own race. Say what you will, in God’s 
name! ” 

“ I hold, sir,” said J ack, modestly, “ according to holy Scripture, 
that whosoever repents from his heart, as God knows you seem to have 
done, is forgiven there and then; and though his sins be as scarlet, they 
shall be white as snow, for the sake of Him who died for all.” 

“Amen ! Amen ! ” said the old man, looking lovingly at his little 
crucifix. “ I hope and pray — His name is love. I know it now; who 
better? But, sir, even if He have forgiven me, how can I forgive 
myself? In honor, sir, I must be just, and sternly just, to myself, 
even if God be indulgent; as He has been to me, who has left me here 
in peace for forty years instead of giving me a prey to the first puma 
or jaguar which howls round me every night. He has given me time 
to work out my own salvation; but have I done it? That doubt 
maddens me at whiles. When I look upon that crucifix, I float on 
boundless hope: but if I take my eyes from it for a moment, faith 
fails, and all is blank, and dark and dreadful, till the devil whispers 
me to plunge into yon stream, and once and forever wake to certainty, 
even though it be in hell.” 

What was Jack to answer? He himself knew not at first. More 
was wanted than the mere repetition of free pardon. 

“ Heretic as I am, sir, you will not believe me when I tell you, as 
a priest, that God accepts your penitence.” 

“ My heart tells me so already, at moments. But how know I that 
it does not lie? ” 

“ Senor,” said Jack, “ the best way to punish oneself for doing ill, 
seems to me to go and do good; and the best way to find out whether 
God means you well, is to find out whether He will help you to do 
well. If you have wronged Indians in time past, see whether you 
cannot right them now. If you can, you are safe. For the Lord will 
not send the devil’s servants to do His work.” 

The old man held down his head. 

“ Right the Indians? Alas! what is done, is done! ” 


464 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Not altogether, Senor,” said Amyas, “ as long as an Indian re- 
mains alive in New Granada.” 

“ Senor, shall I confess my weakness? A voice within me has bid 
me a hundred times go forth, and labor for those oppressed wretches, 
but I dare not obey. I dare not look them in the face. I should 
fancy that they knew my story; that the very birds upon the trees 
would reveal my crime, and bid them turn from me with horror.” 

“ Senor,” said Amyas, “ these are but the sick fancies of a noble 
spirit, feeding on itself in solitude. You have but to try to conquer.” 

“And look now,” said Jack, “ if you dare not go forth to help the 
Indians, see now how God has brought the Indians to your own door* 
Oh, excellent sir ” 

“ Call me not excellent,” said the old man, smiting his breast. 

“ I do, and shall, sir, while I see in you an excellent repentance, an 
excellent humility, and an excellent justice,” said Jack. “ But oh, sir, 
look upon these forty souls, whom we must leave behind, like sheep 
which have no shepherd. Could you not teach them to fear God and 
to love each other, to live like rational men, perhaps to die like Chris- 
tians? They would obey you as a dog obeys his master. You might 
be their king, their father, yea, their pope, if you would.” 

“ You do not speak like a Lutheran.” 

“ I am not a Lutheran, but an Englishman: but Protestant as I am, 
God knows, I had sooner see these poor souls of your creed, than of 
none.” 

“ But I am no priest.” 

“ When they are ready,” said Jack, “ the Lord will send a priest. If 
you begin the good work, you may trust to Him to finish it.” 

“ God help me ! ” said the old warrior. 

The talk lasted long into the night, but Amyas was up long before 
daybreak, felling the trees; and as he and Cary walked back to break- 
fast, the first thing which they saw was the old man in his garden with 
four or five Indian children round him, talking smilingly to them. 

“ The old man’s heart is sound still,” said Will. “No man is lost 
who still is fond of little children.” 

“ Ah, Senors! ” said the hermit as they came up, “ you see that I 
have begun already to act upon your advice.” 

“ And you have begun at the right end,” quoth Amyas; “ if you 
win the children, you win the mothers.” 

“And if you win the mothers,” quoth Will, “ the poor fathers must 
needs obey their wives, and follow in the wake.” 


465 


The Gold-train 

The old man only sighed. “ The prattle of these little ones softens 
my hard heart, Senors, with a new pleasure; but it saddens me, when 
I recollect that there may be children of mine now in the world — chil- 
dren who have never known a father’s love, — never known aught but 
a master’s threats ” 

“ God has taken care of these little ones. Trust that He has taken 
care of yours.” 

That day Amy as assembled the Indians, and told them that they must 
obey the hermit as their king, and settle there as best they could: for 
if they broke up and wandered away, nothing was left for them but to 
fall one by one into the hands of the Spaniards. They heard him with 
their usual melancholy and stupid acquiescence, and went and came as 
they were bid, like animated machines; but the Negroes were of a dif- 
ferent temper; and four or five stout fellows gave Amyas to under- 
stand that they had been warriors in their own country, and that war- 
riors they would be still ; and nothing should keep them from Spaniard- 
hunting. Amyas saw that the presence of these desperadoes in the 
new colony would both endanger the authority of the hermit, and bring 
the Spaniards down upon it in a few weeks; so, making a virtue of 
necessity, he asked them whether they would go Spaniard-hunting 
with him. 

This was just what the bold Coromantees wished for; they grinned 
and shouted their delight at serving under so great a warrior, and then 
set to work most gallantly, getting through more in the day than any 
ten Indians, and indeed than any two Englishmen. 

So went on several days, during which the trees were felled and the 
process of digging them out began; while Ayacanora, silent and 
moody, wandered into the woods all day with her blow-gun, and 
brought home at evening a load of parrots, monkeys, and curassows; 
two or three old hands were sent out to hunt likewise ; so that what with 
the game and the fish of the river, which seemed inexhaustible, and the 
fruit of the neighboring palm-trees, there was no lack of food in the 
camp. But what to do with Ayacanora weighed heavily on the mind 
of Amyas. He opened his heart on the matter to the old hermit, and 
asked him, whether he would take charge of her. The latter smiled, 
and shook his head at the notion. “ If your report of her be true, I 
may as well take in hand to tame a jaguar.” However, he promised 
to try; and one evening, as they were all standing together before the 
mouth of the cave, Ayacanora came up smiling with the fruit of her 
day’s sport; and Amyas, thinking this a fit opportunity, began a care- 


466 


Westward Ho ! 

fully prepared harangue to her, which he intended to be altogether 
soothing, and even pathetic, — to the effect that the maiden, having no 
parents, was to look upon this good old man as her father; that he 
would instruct her in the white man’s religion (at which promise Yeo, 
as a good Protestant, winced a good deal), and teach her how to be 
happy and good, and so forth; and that, in fine, she was to remain 
there with the hermit. 

She heard him quietly, her great dark eyes opening wider and 
wider, her bosom swelling, her stature seeming to grow taller every 
moment, as she clenched her weapons firmly in both her hands. Beau- 
tiful as she always was, she had never looked so beautiful before ; and 
as Amyas spoke of parting with her, it was like throwing away a lovely 
toy: but it must be done, for her sake, for his, perhaps for that of all 
the crew. 

The last words had hardly passed his lips, when, with a shriek of 
mingled scorn, rage, and fear, she dashed through the astonished 
group. 

“ Stop her! ” were Amyas’s first words; but his next were, “ Let her 
go ! ” for springing like a deer through the little garden, and over the 
flower-fence she turned, menacing with her blow-gun the sailors who 
had already started in her pursuit. 

“ Let her alone, for Heaven’s sake! ” shouted Amyas, who, he scarce 
knew why, shrank from the thought of seeing those graceful limbs 
struggling in the seamen’s grasp. 

She turned again, and in another minute her gaudy plumes had 
vanished among the dark forest stems, as swiftly as if she had been a 
passing bird. 

All stood thunderstruck at this unexpected end to the conference. 
At last Amyas spoke, — 

“ There’s no use in standing here idle, gentlemen. Staring after 
her won’t bring her back. After all, I’m glad she’s gone.” 

But the tone of his voice belied his words. Now he had lost her, 
he wanted her back; and perhaps every one present, except he, guessed 
why. 

But Ayacanora did not return; and ten days more went on in con- 
tinual toil at the canoes without any news of her from the hunters. 
Amyas, by the by, had strictly bidden these last not to follow the girl, 
not even to speak to her, if they came across her in their wanderings. 
He was shrewd enough to guess, that the only way to cure her sulkiness 
was to outsulk her; but there was no sign of her presence in any direc- 


The Gold-train 467 

tion: and the canoes being finished at last, the gold, and such provisions 
as they could collect, were placed on board, and one evening the party 
prepared for their fresh voyage. They determined to travel as much 
as possible by night, for fear of discovery, especially in the neighbor- 
hood of the few Spanish settlements, which were then scattered along 
the banks of the main-stream. These, however, the negroes knew; 
so that there was no fear of coming on them unawares; and as for fall- 
ing asleep in their night journeys, “ Nobody,” the negroes said, “ ever 
slept on the Magdalena; the mosquitoes took too good care of that.” 
Which fact Amyas and his crew verified afterward as thoroughly as 
wretched men could do. 

The sun had sunk; the night had all but fallen; the men were all on 
board; — Amyas in command of one canoe, Cary of the other. The 
Indians were grouped on the bank, watching the party with their list- 
less stare, and with them the young guide, who preferred remaining 
among the Indians, and was made supremely happy by the present 
of a Spanish sword and an English axe: while in the midst the old 
hermit, with tears in his eyes, prayed God’s blessing on them. 

“ I owe to you, noble cavaliers, new peace, new labor, I may say, 
new life. May God be with you, and teach you to use your gold and 
your swords better than I used mine.” 

The adventurers waved their hands to him. 

“ Give way, men,” cried Amyas ; and as he spoke the paddles dashed 
into the water, to a right English hurrah ! which sent the birds flutter- 
ing from their roosts, and was answered by the yell of a hundred mon- 
keys, and the distant roar of the jaguar. 

About twenty yards below, a wooded rock, some ten feet high, hung 
over the stream. The river was there not more than fifteen yards 
broad; deep near the rock, shallow on the farther side; and Amyas’s 
canoe led the way within ten feet of the stone. 

As he passed, a dark figure leaped from the bushes on the edge, and 
plunged heavily into the water close to the boat. All started. A 
jaguar? No: he would not have missed so short a spring. What, 
then? A human being? 

A head rose panting to the surface, and with a few strong strokes, 
the swimmer had clutched the gunwale. It was Ayacanora! 

“ Go back! ” shouted Amyas. “ Go back, girl! ” 

She uttered the same wild cry with which she had fled into the forest. 

“ I will die then! ” and she threw up her arms. Another moment, 
and she had sunk. 


468 


Westward Ho I 

To see her perish before his eyes! who could bear that? Her hands 
alone were above the surface. Amyas caught convulsively at her in 
the darkness, and seized her wrist. 

A yell rose from the negroes: a roar from the crew as from a cage 
of lions. There was a rush and a swirl along the surface of the 
stream; and “ Caiman! caiman! ” shouted twenty voices. 

Now, or never, for the strong arm! “ To larboard, men, or over 
we go! ” cried Amyas, and with one huge heave, he lifted the slender 
body upon the gunwale. Her lower limbs were still in the water, 
when, within arm’s length, rose above the stream a huge muzzle. The 
lower jaw lay flat, the upper reached as high as Amyas’s head. He 
could see the long fangs gleam white in the moonshine; he could see 
for one moment, full down the monstrous depths of that great gape, 
which would have crushed a buffalo. Three inches, and no more, from 
that soft side, the snout surged up — 

There was the gleam of an axe from above, a sharp ringing blow, 
and the jaws came together with a clash which rang from bank to bank. 
He had missed her ! Swerving beneath the blow, his snout had passed 
beneath her body, and smashed up against the side of the canoe, as the 
striker, overbalanced, fell headlong overboard upon the monster’s back. 

“ Who is it? ” 

“ Yeo! ” shouted a dozen. 

Man and beast went down together, and where they sank, the moon- 
light shone on a great swirling eddy, while all held their breaths, and 
Ayacanora cowered down into the bottom of the canoe, her proud 
spirit utterly broken, for the first time, by the terror of that great need, 
and by a bitter loss. For in the struggle, the holy trumpet, companion 
of all her wanderings, had fallen from her bosom; and her fond hope 
of bringing magic prosperity to her English friends, had sunk with 
it to the bottom of the stream. 

None heeded her; not even Amyas, round whose knees she clung, 
fawning like a spaniel dog: for where was Yeo? 

Another swirl; a shout from the canoe abreast of them, and Yeo 
rose, having dived clean under his own boat, and risen between the two. 

“ Safe as yet, lads! Heave me a line, or he’ll have me after all.” 

But ere the brute reappeared, the old man was safe on board. 

“ The Lord has stood by me,” panted he, as he shot the water from 
his ears. “ We went down together: I knew the Indian trick, and 
being uppermost, had my thumbs in his eyes before he could turn: but 
he carried me down to the very mud. My breath was nigh gone, so 


469 


The Gold-train 

I left go, and struck up: but my toes tingled as I rose again, I’ll 
warrant. There the beggar is, looking for me, I declare! ” 

And, true enough, there was the huge brute swimming slowly round 
and round, in search of his lost victim. It was too dark to put an ar- 
row into his eyes; so they paddled on, while Ayacanora crouched si- 
lently at Amy as’ s feet. 

“ Yeo! ” asked he, in a low voice, “ what shall we do with her? ” 

“ Why ask me, sir ! 55 said the old man, as he had a very good right 
to ask. 

“ Because, when one don’t know oneself, one had best inquire of 
one’s elders. Besides you saved her life at the risk of your own, and 
have a right to a voice in the matter, if any one has, old friend.” 

“ Then, my dear young Captain, if the Lord puts a precious soul 
under your care, don’t you refuse to bear the burden He lays on you.” 

Arnyas was silent a while; while Ayacanora, who was evidently ut- 
terly exhausted by the night’s adventure, and probably by long wander- 
ings, watchings, and weepings which had gone before it, sank with her 
head against his knee, fell fast asleep, and breathed as gently as a child. 

At last he rose in the canoe, and called Cary alongside. 

“ Listen to me, gentlemen, and sailors all. You know that we have 
a maiden on board here, by no choice of our own. Whether she will 
be a blessing to us, God alone can tell : but she may turn to the great- 
est curse which has befallen us, ever since we came out over Bar three 
3 r ears ago. Promise me one thing, or I put her ashore the next beach ; 
and that is, that you will treat her as if she were your own sister; 
and make an agreement here and now, that if the maid comes to harm 
among us, the man that is guilty shall hang for it by the neck till he’s 
dead, even though he be I, Captain Leigh, who speak to you. I’ll 
hang you, as I am a Christian; and I give you free leave to hang me.” 

“ A very fair bargain,” quoth Cary, “ and I for one will see it kept 
to. Lads, we’ll twine a double strong halter for the Captain as we go 
down along.” 

“ I am not jesting, Will.” 

“ I know it, good old lad,” said Cary, stretching out his own hand 
to him across the water through the darkness, and giving him a hearty 
shake. “ I know it; and listen, men! So help me God! but I’ll be 
the first to back the captain in being as good as his word, as I trust 
he never will need to be.” 

“ Amen! ” said Brimblecombe. “ Amen! ” said Yeo; and many an 
honest voice joined in that honest compact, and kept it too, like men. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

How they took. Hie Great GaUeon. 

“When captains courageous, when death could not daunt, 

Did march to the siege of the city of Gaunt, 

They muster’d their soldiers by two and by three, 

But the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree. 

When brave Sir John Major was slain in her sight, 

Who was her true lover, her joy and delight, 

Because he was murther’d most treacherouslie, 

Then vow’d to avenge him fair Mary Ambree.” 

Old Ballad, a. d. 1584. 

One more glance at the golden tropic sea, and the golden tropic 
evenings, by the shore of New Granada, in the golden Spanish Main. 

The bay of Santa Martha is rippling before the land-breeze, one 
sheet of living flame. The mighty forests are sparkling with myriad 
fire-flies. The lazy mist which lounges round the inner hills shines 
golden in the sunset rays; and, nineteen thousand feet aloft, the 
mighty peak of Horqueta cleaves the abyss of air, rose-red against 
the dark-blue vault of heaven. The rosy cone fades to a dull leaden 
hue; but only for a while. The stars flash out one by one, and Venus, 
like another moon, tinges the eastern snows with gold, and sheds 
across the bay a long yellow line of rippling light. Everywhere is 
glory and richness. What wonder if the earth in that enchanted land 
be as rich to her inmost depths as she is upon the surface? The 
heaven, the hills, the sea, are one sparkling garland of jewels — what 
wonder if the soil be jeweled also? if every water-course and bank of 
earth be spangled with emeralds and rubies, with grains of gold, and 
feathered wreaths of native silver? 

So thought, in a poetic mood, the Bishop of Carthagena, as he sat 
in the state cabin of that great galleon, The City of the True Cross, 
and looked pensively out of the window toward the shore. The good 
man was in a state of holy calm. His stout figure rested on one easy- 
chair, his stout ankles on another, beside a table spread with oranges 
and limes, guavas and pine-apples, and all the fruits of Ind. 


471 


The Great Galleon 

Ail Indian girl, bedizened with scarfs and gold chains, kept off the 
flies with a fan of feathers ; and by him, in a pail of ice from the Hor- 
queta (the gift of some pious Spanish lady, who had “spent” an In- 
dian or two in bringing down the precious offering) , stood more than 
one flask of virtuous wine of Alicant. But he was not so selfish, good 
man, as to enjoy either ice or wine alone: Don Pedro, colonel of the 
soldiers on board, Don Alverez, Intendant of His Catholic Majesty’s 
Customs at Santa Martha, and Don Paul, captain of mariners in The 
City of the True Cross , had, by his especial request, come to his assist- 
ance that evening, and with two friars, who sat at the lower end of 
the table, were doing their best to prevent the good man from taking 
too bitterly to heart the present unsatisfactory state of his cathedral 
town, which had just been sacked and burnt by an old friend of ours. 
Sir Francis Drake. 

“ We have been great sufferers, Senors, — ah, great sufferers,” 
snuffled the bishop, quoting Scripture, after the fashion of the day, 
glibly enough, but often much too irreverently for me to repeat, so 
boldly were his texts travestied, and so freely interlarded by grum- 
blings at Tita and the mosquitoes. “ Great sufferers, truly: but there 
shall be a remnant, — Ah, a remnant, like the shaking of the olive-tree, 
and the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done. — Ah! Gold? Yes, 
I trust Our Lady’s mercies are not shut up, nor her arm shortened. — 
Look, Senors ! ” — and he pointed majestically out of the window. “ It 
looks gold ! It smells of gold, as I may say, by a poetical license. Yea, 
the very waves, as they ripple past us, sing of gold, gold, gold! ” 

“ It is a great privilege,” said the intendant, “ to have comfort so 
gracefully administered at once by a churchman and a scholar.” 

“A poet too,” said Don Pedro. “ You have no notion what sweet 
sonnets ” 

“ Hush, Don Pedro— hush! If I, a mateless bird, have spent an 
idle hour in teaching lovers how to sing, why what of that? I am a 
churchman, Senors: but I am a man, and I can feel, Senors; I can 
sympathize; I can palliate; I can excuse. Who knows better than I, 
how much human nature lurks in us fallen sons of Adam? Tita! ” 

“ Urn? ” said the trembling girl, with a true Indian grunt. 

“ Fill his Excellency the Intendant’s glass. Does much more treas- 
ure come down, illustrious Senor? May the poor of Mary hope for a 
few more crumbs from their Mistress’s table? ” 

“ Not a pezo, I fear. The big white cow up there”— and he pointed 
to the Horqueta — “ has been milked dry for this year.” 


472 


Westward Ho ! 

“Ah! ” And he looked up at the magnificent snow peak. “ Only 
good to cool wine with, eh? and as safe for the time being as Solomon’s 
birds.” 

“ Solomon’s birds? Explain your recondite allusion, my lord.” 

“ Enlighten us, your excellency; enlighten us.” 

“ Ah! thereby hangs a tale. You know the holy birds who run up 
and down on the Prado at Seville, among the ladies’ pretty feet, — 
eh? with hooked noses, and cinnamon crests? Of course. Hoopoes — 
Upupa, as the classics have it. Well, Senors, once on a time, the story 
goes, these hoopoes all had golden crowns on their heads; and, Senors, 
they took the consequences — eh? But it befell on a day, that all the 
birds and beasts came to do homage at the court of His Most Catholic 
Majesty King Solomon; and among them came these same hoopoes; 
and they had a little request to make, the poor rogues. And what do 
you think it was? Why, that King Solomon would pray for them, 
that they might wear any sort of crowns but these same golden ones ; 
for — listen, Tita ! and see the snare of riches — mankind so hunted, and 
shot, and trapped, and snared them, for the sake of these same golden 
crowns, that life was a burden to bear. So Solomon prayed; and in- 
stead of golden crowns, they all received crowns of feathers ; and ever 
since, Senors, they live as merrily as crickets in an oven, and also have 
the honor of bearing the name of His Most Catholic Majesty King 
Solomon. Tita! fill the Senor Commandant’s glass. Fray Gerundio, 
what are you whispering about down there, sir? ” 

Fray Gerundio had merely commented to his brother on the bishop’s 
story of Solomon’s birds with an — 

“O si sic omnia! — would that all gold would turn to feathers in 
like wise ! ” 

“ Then, friend,” replied the other, a Dominican, like Gerundio, but 
of a darker and sterner complexion, “ corrupt human nature would 
within a week discover some fresh bauble, for which to kill and be 
killed in vain.” 

“ What is that, Fray Gerundio? ” asked the bishop again. 

“ I merely remarked, that it were well for the world if all mankind 
were to put up the same prayer as the hoopoes.” 

“ World, sir? What do you know about the world? Convert your 
Indians, sir, if you please, and leave affairs of state to your superiors. 
You will excuse him, Senors” (turning to the Dons, and speaking in 
a lower tone), “ A very worthy and pious man, but a poor peasant’s 
son; and beside — you understand. A little wrong here; too much 


473 


The Great Galleon 

fasting and watching, I fear, good man.” And the bishop touched his 
forehead knowingly, to signify that Fray Gerundio’s wits were in an 
unsatisfactory state. 

The Fray heard and saw with a quiet smile. He was one of those 
excellent men whom the cruelties of his countrymen had stirred up 
(as the darkness, by mere contrast, makes the light more bright), as 
they did Las Casas, Gasca, and many another noble name which is 
written in the book of life, to deeds of love and pious daring worthy 
of any creed or age. True Protestants, they protested, even before 
kings, against the evil which lay nearest them, the sin which really 
beset them ; true liberals, they did not disdain to call the dark-skinned 
heathen their brothers; and asserted in terms which astonish us, when 
we recollect the age in which they were spoken, the inherent freedom 
of every being who wore the flesh and blood which their Lord wore; 
true martyrs, they bore witness of Christ, and received too often the 
reward of such, in slander and contempt. Such an one was Fray 
Gerundio; a poor, mean, clumsy-tongued peasant’s son, who never 
could put three sentences together, save when he waxed eloquent, 
crucifix in hand, amid some group of Indians or negroes. He was ac- 
customed to such rebuffs as the bishop’s ; he took them for what they 
were worth, and sipped his wine in silence; while the talk went on. 

“ They say,” observed the commandant, “ that a very small Plate- 
fleet will go to Spain this year.” 

“ What else? ” says the intendant. “ What have we to send, in the 
name of all saints, since these accursed English Lutherans have swept 
us out clean? ” 

“ And if we had anything to send,” says the sea-captain, “ what 
have we to send it in? That fiend incarnate, Drake ” 

“Ah!” said his holiness; “spare my ears! Don Pedro, you will 
oblige my weakness by not mentioning that man; — his name is Tar- 
tarean, unfit for polite lips. Draco— a dragon— serpent— the emblem 
of Diabolus himself — ah! And the guardian of the golden apples of 
the west, who would fain devour our new Hercules, His Most Catholic 
Majesty. Deceived Eve, too, with one of those same apples — a very 
evil name, Senors — a Tartarean name, — Tita! ” 

“ Urn!” 

“ Fill my glass.” 

“ Nay,” cried the colonel, with a great oath, “ this English fellow 
is of another breed of serpent from that, I warrant.” 

“ Your reason, Senor; your reason? ” 


474 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Because this one would have seen Eve at the bottom of the sea, 
before he let her, or any one but himself, taste aught which looked 
like gold.” 

“Ah, ah! — very good! But — we laugh, valiant Senors, while the 
Church weeps. Alas for my sheep ! ” 

“ And, alas for their sheepfold! It will be four years before we can 
get Carthagena rebuilt again. And as for the blockhouse, when we 
shall get that rebuilt, Heaven only knows, while His Majesty goes on 
draining the Indies for his English Armada. The town is as naked 
now as an Indian’s back.” 

“ Baptista Antonio, the surveyor, has sent home by me a relation 
to the king, setting forth our defenseless state. But to read a rela- 
tion and to act on it, are two cocks of very different hackles, bishop, 
as all statesmen know. Heaven grant we may have orders by the next 
fleet to fortify, or we shall be at the mercy of every English pirate! ” 

“Ah, that blockhouse!” sighed the bishop. “That was indeed 
a villainous trick. A hundred and ten thousand ducats for the ransom 
of the town ! After having burned and plundered the one-half — and 
having made me dine with them too, ah ! and sit between the — the ser- 
pent, and his lieutenant-general — and drank my health in my own 
private wine — wine that I had from Xeres nine years ago, Sefiors — 
and offered, the shameless heretics, to take me to England, if I would 
turn Lutheran, and find me a wife, and make an honest man of me — 
ah! and then to demand fresh ransom for the priory and the fort — 
perfidious! ” 

“ Well,” said the colonel, “ they had the law of us, the cunning ras- 
cals, for we forgot to mention anything but the town, in the agree- 
ment. Who would have dreamed of such a fetch as that? ” 

“ So I told my good friend the prior, when he came to me to bor- 
row the thousand crowns. It was Heaven’s will. Unexpected like 
the thunderbolt, and to be borne as such. Every man must bear his 
own burden. How could I lend him aught? ” 

“ Your holiness’s money had been all carried off by them before,” 
said the intendant, who knew, and none better, the exact contrary. 

“ Just so — all my scanty savings! desolate in my lone old age. Ah, 
Senors, had we not had warning of the coming of these wretches from 
my dear friend the Marquess of Santa Cruz, whom I remember daily 
in my prayers, we had been like to them who go down quick into the 
pit. I too might have saved a trifle, had I been minded: but in think- 
ing too much of others, I forgot myself, alas! ” 


The Great Galleon 475 

“ Warnmg or none, we had no right to be beaten by such a hand- 
ful*” said the sea-captain; “ and a shame it is, and a shame it will be, 
for many a day to come.” 

“ Do you mean to cast any slur, sir, upon the courage and conduct 
of His Catholic Majesty’s soldiers? ” asked the colonel. 

u I? — No; but we were foully beaten, and that behind our barri- 
cades too, and there’s the plain truth.” 

“ Beaten, sir! Do you apply such a term to the fortunes of war? 
What more could our governor have done? Had we not the ways 
filled with poisoned caltrops, guarded by Indian archers, barred with 
butts full of earth, raked with culverins and arquebuses? What fa- 
miliar spirit had we, sir, to tell us that these villains would come along 
the sea-beach, and not by the high-road, like Christian men? ” 

“ Ah! ” said the bishop, “ it was by intuition diabolic, I doubt not, 
that they took that way. Satanas must need help those who serve 
him; and for my part, I can only attribute (I would the captain here 
had piety enough to do so) the misfortune which occurred to art-magic. 
I believe these men to have been possessed by all fiends whatso- 
ever.” 

“ Well, your holiness,” said the colonel, “ there may have been 
devilry in it; how else would men have dared to run right into the 
mouths of our cannon, fire their shot against our very noses, and 
tumble harmless over those huge butts of earth? ” 

“ Doubtless, by force of the fiends which raged with them,” in- 
terposed the bishop. 

“And then, with their blasphemous cries, leap upon us with sword 
and pike? I myself saw that Lieutenant-General Carlisle hew down 
with one stroke that noble young gentleman the ensign-bearer, your 
Excellency’s sister’s son’s nephew, though he was armed cap-a-pie. 
Was not art-magic here? And that most furious and blaspheming 
Lutheran Captain Young, I saw how he caught our general by the 
head, after the illustrious Don Alonzo had given him a grievous 
wound, threw him to the earth, and so took him. Was not art-magic 
here? ” 

“ Well, I say,” said the captain, “ if you are looking for art-magic, 
what say you to their marching through the flank fire of our galleys, 
with eleven pieces of ordnance, and two hundred shot playing on them, 
as if it had been a mosquito swarm? Some said my men fired too 
high: but that was the English rascals’ doing, for they got down on 
the tide beach. But, Senor Commandant, though Satan may have 


476 


Westward Ho ! 

taught them that trick, was it he that taught them to carry pikes a 
foot longer than yours ? ” 

“Ah, well,” said the bishop, “ sacked are we; and Saint Domingo, as 
I hear, in worse case than we are; and Saint Augustine in Florida 
likewise; and all that is left for a poor priest like me, is to return to 
Spain, and see whether the pious clemency of his Majesty, and of the 
universal Father, may not be willing to grant some small relief or 
bounty to the poor of Mary — perhaps — (for who knows?) to trans- 
late to a sphere of more peaceful labor one who is now old, Senors, and 
weary with many toils — Tita! Fill our glasses. I have saved some- 
what — as you may have done, Senors, from the general wreck; and for 
the flock, when I am no more, illustrious Senors, Heaven’s mercies are 
infinite ; new cities will rise from the ashes of the old, new mines pour 
forth their treasures into the sanctified laps of the faithful, and new 
Indians flock toward the life-giving standard of the Cross, to put on 
the easy yoke and light burden of the Church, and 

“And where shall I be then? Ah, where? Fain would I rest, and 
fain depart. Tita! Sling my hammock. Senors, you will excuse 
age and infirmities. Fray Gerundio, go to bed ! ” 

And the Dons rose to depart, while the bishop went on maunder- 
ing— 

“ Farewell! Life is short. Ah! we shall meet in heaven at last. 
And there are really no more pearls? ” 

“ Not a frail; nor gold either,” said the intendant. 

“Ah, well! Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than — Tita! 

My breviary — ah ! Man’s gratitude is short-lived, I had hoped 

You have seen nothing of the Senora Bovadilla? ” 

“ No.” 

“Ah! she promised: — but no matter — a little trifle as a keepsake — a 
gold cross, or an emerald ring, or what not — I forget. And what 
have I to do with worldly wealth! — ah! Tita! bring me the casket.” 

And when his guests were gone, the old man began mumbling 
prayers out of his breviary, and fingering over jewels and gold, with 
the dull greedy eyes of covetous old age. 

“Ah! — it may buy the red hat yet! — Omnia Romas venalia! Put it 
by, Tita, and do not look at it too much, child. Enter not into tempta- 
tion. The love of money is the root of all evil ; and Heaven, in love 
for the Indian, has made him poor in this world, that he may be rich 
in faith. Ah!— Ugh!— So!” 

And the old miser clambered into his hammock. Tita drew the 


477 


The Great Galleon 

mosquito net over him, wrapped another round her own head, and 
slept, or seemed to sleep ; for she coiled herself up upon the floor, and 
master and slave soon snored a merry bass to the treble of the mos- 
quitoes. 

It was long past midnight, and the moon was down. The sentinels, 
who had tramped and challenged overhead till they thought their 
officers were sound asleep, had slipped out of the unwholesome rays 
of the planet to seek that health and peace which they considered their 
right, and slept as soundly as the bishop’s self. 

Two long lines glided out from behind the isolated rocks of the 
Morro Grande, which bounded the bay some five hundred yards 
astern of the galleon. They were almost invisible on the glittering 
surface of the water, being perfectly white; and, had a sentinel been 
looking out, he could only have descried them by the phosphorescent 
flashes along their sides. 

Now the bishop had awoke, and turned himself over uneasily; for 
the wine was dying out within him, and his shoulders had slipped down, 
and his heels up, and his head ached: so he sat upright in his hammock, 
looked out upon the bay, and called Tita. 

“Put another pillow under my head, child! What is that? a 
fish?” 

Tita looked. She did not think it was a fish: but she did not choose 
to say so; for it might have produced an argument, and she had her 
reasons for not keeping his holiness awake. 

The bishop looked again ; settled that it must be a white whale, or 
shark, or other monster of the deep; crossed himself, prayed for a safe 
voyage, and snored once more. 

Presently the cabin-door opened gently, and the head of the Senor 
Intendant appeared. 

Tita sat up ; and then began crawling like a snake along the floor, 
among the chairs and tables, by the light of the cabin lamp. 

“ Is he asleep? ” 

“ Yes: but the casket is under his head.” 

“ Curse him! How shall we take it? ” 

“ I brought him a fresh pillow half an hour ago; I hung his ham- 
mock wrong on purpose that he might want one. I thought to slip the 
box away as I did it; but the old ox nursed it in both hands all the 
while.” 

“What shall we do, in the name of all the fiends? She sails to- 
morrow morning, and then all is lost. 


478 


Westward Ho ! 

Tita showed her white teeth, and touched the dagger which hung 
by the intendant’s side. 

“ I dare not! ” said the rascal with a shudder. 

“ I dare! ” said she. “ He whipped my mother, because she would 
not give me up to him to be taught in his schools, when she went to 
the mines. And she went to the mines, and died there in three months. 
I saw her go, with a chain round her neck; but she never came back 
again. Yes; I dare kill him! I will kill him! I will! ” 

The Senor felt his mind much relieved. He had no wish, of course, 
to commit the murder himself ; for he was a good Catholic, and feared 
the devil. But Tita was an Indian, and her being lost did not matter 
so much. Indians’ souls were cheap, like their bodies. So he an- 
swered, “ But we shall be discovered! ” 

“ I will leap out of the window with the casket, and swim ashore. 
They will never suspect you, and they will fancy I am drowned.” 

“ The sharks may seize you, Tita. You had better give me the 
casket.” 

Tita smiled. “ You would not like to lose that, eh? though you 
care little about losing me. And yet you told me that you loved 
me!” 

“And I do love you, Tita! light of my eyes! life of my heart! I 
swear, by all the saints, I love you. I will marry you, I swear I 
will — I will swear on the crucifix, if you like! ” 

“ Swear, then, or I do not give you the casket,” said she, holding 
out the little crucifix round her neck, and devouring him with the wild 
eyes of passionate unreasoning tropic love. 

He swore, trembling, and deadly pale. 

“ Give me your dagger.” 

“ No, not mine. It may be found. I shall be suspected. What 
if my sheath were seen to be empty? ” 

“ Your knife will do. His throat is soft enough.” 

And she glided stealthily as a cat toward the hammock, while her 
cowardly companion stood shivering at the other end of the cabin, 
and turned his back to her, that he might not see the deed. 

He stood waiting, one minute — two — five? was it an hour, rather? 
A cold sweat bathed his limbs; the blood beat so fiercely within his 
temples, that his head rang again. Was that a death-bell tolling? 
No; it was the pulses of his brain. Impossible, surety, a death-bell. 
Whence could it come? 

There was a struggle — ah! she was about it now; a stifled cry — Ah! 


The Great Galleon 479 

he had dreaded that most of all, to hear the old man cry. Would there 
be much blood? He hoped not. Another struggle, and Tita’s voice, 
apparently muffled, called for help. 

I cannot help you. Mother of Mercies! I dare not help you! ” 
hissed he. “ She-devil! you have begun it, and you must finish it 
yourself! ” 

A heavy arm from behind clasped his throat. The bishop had 
broken loose from her, and seized him! Or was it his ghost? or a 
fiend come to drag him down to the pit? And forgetting all but mere 
wild terror, he opened his lips for a scream, which would have wakened 
every soul on board. But a handkerchief was thrust into his mouth; 
and in another minute he found himself bound hand and foot, and 
laid upon the table by a gigantic enemy. The cabin was full of armed 
men, two of whom were lashing up the bishop in his hammock; two 
more had seized Tita; and more were clambering up into the stern- 
gallery beyond, wild figures, with bright blades and armor gleaming 
in the starlight. 

“ Now, Will,” whispered the giant who had seized him, “ forward 
and clap the fore-hatches on; and shout Fire! with all your might. 
Girl! murderess! your life is in my hands. Tell me where the com- 
mander sleeps, and I pardon you.” 

Tita looked up at the huge speaker, and obeyed in silence. The 
intendant heard him enter the colonel’s cabin, and then a short scuffle, 
and silence for a moment. 

But only for a moment; for already the alarm had been given, and 
mad confusion reigned through every deck. Amyas (for it was none 
other) had already gained the poop; the sentinels were gagged and 
bound; and every half-naked wretch who came trembling up on deck 
in his shirt by the main hatchway, calling one, “Fire!” another, 
“Wreck!” and another, “Treason!” was hurled into the scuppers, 
and there secured. 

“Lower away that boat!” shouted Amyas in Spanish to his first 
batch of prisoners. 

The men, unarmed and naked, could but obey. 

“ Now then, jump in. Here, hand them to the gangway as they 
come up.” 

It was done; and as each appeared, he was kicked to the scuppers, 
and bundled down over the side. 

“ She’s full. Cast loose now and off with you. If you try to board 
again we’ll sink you.” 


480 Westward Ho ! 

“ Fire! fire! ” shouted Cary, forward — “ Up the main hatchway for 
your lives ! ” 

The ruse succeeded utterly; and before half an hour was over, all 
the ship’s boats which could be lowered were filled with Spaniards in 
their shirts, getting ashore as best they could. 

“ Here is a new sort of camisado,” quoth Cary. “ The last Spanish 
one I saw was at the sortie from Smerwick: but this is somewhat more 
prosperous than that.” 

“ Get the main and foresail up. Will! ” said Amyas, “ cut the cable; 
and we will plume the quarry as we fly.” 

“ Spoken like a good falconer. Heaven grant that this big wood- 
cock may carry a good trail inside ! ” 

“ I’ll warrant her for that,” said Jack Brimblecombe. “ She floats 
so low.” 

“ Much of your build, too, Jack. By the by, where is the com- 
mander? ” 

Alas! Don Pedro, forgotten in the bustle, had been lying on the 
deck in his shirt, helplessly bound, exhausting that part of his vocabu- 
lary which related to the unseen world. Which most discourteous act 
seemed at first likely to be somewhat heavily avenged on Amyas ; for 
as he spoke, a couple of caliver-shots, fired from under the poop, 
passed “ ping ” “ ping ” by his ears, and Cary clapped his hand to his 
side. 

“ Hurt, Will? ” 

“A pinch, old lad — Look out, or we are ‘ alien verloren ’ after all, 
as the Flemings say.” 

And as he spoke, a rush forward on the poop drove two of their best 
men down the ladder into the waist, where Amyas stood. 

“ Killed? ” asked he, as he picked one up, who had fallen head over 
heels. 

“ Sound as a bell, sir: but they Gentiles has got hold of the firearms, 
and set the captain free.” 

And rubbing the back of his head for a minute, he jumped up the 
ladder again, shouting, — 

“ Have at ye, idolatrous pagans! Have at ye, Satan’s spawn! ” 

Amyas jumped up after him, shouting to all hands to follow; for 
there was no time to be lost. 

Out of the windows of the poop, which looked on the main-deck, a 
galling fire had been opened, and he could not afford to lose men ; for, 
as far as he knew, the Spaniards left on board might still far out- 


481 


The Great Galleon 

number the English ; so up he sprang on the poop, followed by a dozen 
men, and there began a very heavy fight between two parties of valiant 
warriors, who easily knew each other apart by the peculiar fashion of 
their armor. For the Spaniards fought in their shirts, and in no other 
garments : but the English in all other manner of garments, tag, rag, 
and bobtail ; and yet had never a shirt between them. 

The rest of the English made a rush, of course, to get upon the 
poop, seeing that the Spaniards could not shoot them through the 
deck; but the fire from the windows was so hot that although they 
dodged behind masts, spars, and every possible shelter, one or two 
dropped; and Jack Brimblecombe and Yeo took on themselves to call 
a retreat, and with about a dozen men, got back, and held a council 
of war. 

What was to be done? Their arquebuses were of little use; for the 
Spaniards were behind a strong bulk-head. There were cannon: but 
where was powder or shot? The boats, encouraged by the clamor 
on deck, were paddling alongside again. Yeo rushed round and 
round, probing every gun with his sword. 

“ Here's a patararo loaded! Now for a match, lads.” 

Luckily one of the English had kept his match alight during the 
scuffle. 

“ Thanks be ! Help me to unship the gun — the mast’s in the way 
here.” 

The patararo, or brass swivel, was unshipped. 

“ Steady, lads, and keep it level, or you’ll shake out the priming. 
Ship it here; turn out that one, and heave it into that boat, if they 
come alongside. Steady now — so! Rummage about, and find me a 
bolt or two, a marlin-spike, anything. Quick, or the captain will be 
overmastered yet.” 

Missiles were found — odds and ends — and crammed into the swivel 
up to the muzzle: and, in another minute, its “ cargo of notions ” was 
crashing into the poop-windows, silencing the fire from thence ef- 
fectually enough for the time. 

“ Now, then, rush forward, and right in along the deck! ” shouted 
Yeo; and the whole party charged through the cabin-doors, which their 
shot had burst open, and hewed their way from room to room. 

In the meanwhile, the Spaniards above had fought fiercely: but, in 
spite of superior numbers, they had gradually given back before the 
« demoniacal possession of those blasphemous heretics, who fought, not 
like men, but like furies from the pit.” And by the time that Brimble- 


482 


Westward Ho ! 

combe and Yeo shouted from the stern-gallery below that the quarter- 
deck was won, few on either side but had their shrewd scratch to show. 

“ Yield, Senor! ” shouted Amyas to the commander, who had been 
fighting like a lion, back to back with the captain of mariners. 

“ Never! You have bound me, and insulted me! Your blood or 
mine must wipe out the stain! ” 

And he rushed on Amyas. There was a few moments’ heavy fence 
between them; and then Amyas cut right at his head. But as he 
raised his arm, the Spaniard’s blade slipped along his ribs, and snapped 
against the point of his shoulder-blade. An inch more to the left, and 
it would have been through his heart. The blow fell, nevertheless, and 
the commandant fell with it, stunned by the flat of the sword, but not 
wounded; for Amyas’s hand had turned, as he winced from his wound. 
But the sea-captain, seeing Amyas stagger, sprang at him, and, seiz- 
ing him by the wrist, ere he could raise his sword again, shortened his 
weapon to run him through. Amyas made a grasp at his wrist in 
return, but, between his faintness and the darkness, missed it. — An- 
other moment, and all would have been over ! 

A bright blade flashed close past Amyas’s ear; the sea-captain’s 
grasp loosened, and he dropped a corpse ; while over him, like an angry 
lioness above her prey, stood Ayacanora, her long hair floating in the 
wind, her dagger raised aloft, as she looked round, challenging all and 
every one to approach. 

“Are you hurt? ” panted she. 

“A scratch, child. — What do you do here? Go back, go back.” 

Ayacanora slipped back like a scolded child, and vanished in the 
darkness. 

The battle was over. The Spaniards, seeing their commanders fall, 
laid down their arms, and cried for quarter. It was given: the poor 
fellows were tied together, two and two, and seated in a row on the 
deck; the commandant, sorely bruised, yielded himself perforce; and 
the galleon was taken. 

Amyas hurried forward to get the sails set. As he went down the 
poop-ladder, there was some one sitting on the lowest step. 

“ Who is here — wounded? ” 

“ I am not wounded,” said a woman’s voice, low, and stifled with 
sobs. 

It was Ayacanora. She rose, and let him pass. He saw that her 
face was bright with tears: but he hurried on, nevertheless. 

“ Perhaps I did speak a little hastily to her, considering she saved 


483 


The Great Galleon 

my life; but what a brimstone it is! Mary Ambree in a dark skin! 
Now then, lads! Get the Santa Fe gold up out of the canoes, and 
then we will put her head to the northeast, and away for old England. 
Mr. Brimblecombe ! don’t say that Eastward-ho don’t bring luck this 
time.” 

It was impossible, till morning dawned, either to get matters into 
any order, or to overhaul the prize they had taken; and many of the 
men were so much exhausted, that they fell fast asleep on the deck 
ere the surgeon had time to dress their wounds. However, Amyas 
contrived, when once the ship was leaping merrily close-hauled against 
a fresh land-breeze, to count his little flock, and found out of the forty- 
four but six seriously wounded, and none killed. However, their 
working numbers were now reduced to thirty-eight, beside the four 
negroes, a scanty crew enough to take home such a ship to England. 

After a while, up came Jack Brimblecombe on deck, a bottle in 
his hand. 

“ Lads, a prize ! ” 

“ Well, we know that already.” 

“ Nay, but — look hither, and laid in ice, too, as I live, the luxurious 
dogs ! But I had to fight for it, I had. For when I went down into 
the state cabin, after I had seen to the wounded, whom should I find 
loose but that Indian lass, who had just unbound the fellow you 
caught ” 

“Ah! those two, I believe, were going to murder the old man in 
the hammock, if we had not come in the nick of time. What have 
}mu done with them? ” 

“ Why, the Spaniard ran when he saw me, and got into a cabin: 
but the woman, instead of running, came at me with a knife, and 
chased me round the table like a very cat-a-mountain. So I ducked 
under the old man’s hammock, and out into the gallery; and when I 
thought the coast was clear, back again I came, and stumbled over 
this. So I just picked it up, and ran on deck with my tail between 
my legs, for I expected verily to have the black woman’s knife between 
my ribs out of some dark corner.” 

“Well done, Jack! Let’s have the wine, nevertheless, and then 
down to set a guard on the cabin doors for fear of plundering.” 

“ Better go down, and see that nothing is thrown overboard by 
Spaniards. As for plundering, I will settle that.” 

And Amyas walked forward among the men. 

“ Muster the men, boatswain, and count them.” 


484 


Westward Ho ! 

“All here, sir, but the six poor fellows who are laid forward.” 

“ Now, my men,” said Amyas, “ for three years you and I have 
wandered on the face of the earth, seeking our fortune; and we have 
found it at last, thanks be to God! Now, what was our promise and 
vow which we made to God beneath the tree of Guayra, if He should 
grant us good fortune, and bring us home again with a prize? Was 
it not that the dead should share with the living; and that every man's 
portion, if he fell, should go to his widow or his orphans, or if he had 
none, to his parents? ” 

“ It was, sir,” said Yeo, “ and I trust that the Lord will give these 
men grace to keep their vow. They have seen enough of His provi- 
dences by this time to fear Him.” 

“ I doubt them not: but I remind them of it. The Lord has put 
into our hands a rich prize ; and what with the gold which we have al- 
ready, we are well paid for all our labors. Let us thank Him, with 
fervent hearts, as soon as the sun rises; and in the meanwhile, re- 
member all, that whosoever plunders on his private account, robs not 
the adventurers merely, but the orphan and the widow, which is to 
rob God; and makes himself partaker of Achan’s curse, who hid the 
wedge of gold, and brought down God’s anger on the whole army 
of Israel. For me, lest you should think me covetous : I could claim 
my brother’s share; but I hereby give it up freely into the common 
stock, for the use of the whole ship’s crew, who have stood by me 
through weal and woe as men never stood before, as I believe, by 
any captain. So, now to prayers, lads, and then to eat our breakfast.” 

So, to the Spaniards’ surprise (who most of them believed that the 
English were Atheists ) , to prayers they went. 

After which Brimblecombe contrived to inspire the black cook and 
the Portuguese steward with such energy, that by seven o’clock the 
latter worthy appeared on deck, and with profound reverences, an- 
nounced to “ The most excellent and heroical Senor Adelantado Cap- 
tain Englishman,” that breakfast was ready in the state-cabin. 

“ You will do us the honor of accompanying us as our guest, sir, or 
our host, if you prefer the title,” said Amyas to the Commandant, who 
stood by. 

“ Pardon, Senor: but honor forbids me to eat with one who has 
offered to me the indelible insult of bonds.” 

“ Oh! ” said Amyas, taking off his hat, “ then pray accept on the 
spot my humble apologies for all which has passed, and my assurances 
that the indignities which you have unfortunately endured, were owing 


485 


The Great Galleon 

altogether to the necessities of war, and not to any wish to hurt the 
feelings of so valiant a soldier and gentleman.” 

“ It is enough, Senor,” said the Commandant, bowing and shrugging 
his shoulders — for, indeed, he too was very hungry; while Cary whis- 
pered to Amyas, — 

“ You will make a courtier yet, old lad.” 

“ I am not in jesting humor, Will: my mind sadly misgives me that 
we shall hear black news, and have, perhaps, to do a black deed yet, on 
board here. Senor, I follow you.” 

So they went down, and found the bishop, who was by this time 
unbound, seated in a corner of the cabin, his hands fallen on his knees, 
his eyes staring on vacancy, while the two priests stood as close 
against the wall as they could squeeze themselves, keeping up a 
ceaseless mutter of prayers. 

“Your holiness will breakfast with us, of course; and these two 
f rocked gentlemen likewise. I see no reason for refusing them all 
hospitality, as yet.” 

There was a marked emphasis on the last two words, which made 
both monks wince. 

“ Our chaplain will attend to you, gentlemen. His lordship the 
bishop will do me the honor of sitting next to me.” 

The bishop seemed to revive slowly as he snuffed the savory steam; 
and at last, rising mechanically, subsided into the chair which Amyas 
offered him on his left, while the Commandant sat on his right. 

“A little of this kid, my Lord? No — ah — Friday, I recollect. 
Some of that turtle-fin, then. Will, serve his lordship; pass the 
cassava-bread up, Jack! Sefior Commandant! a glass of wine? You 
need it after your valiant toils. To the health of all brave soldiers — 
and a toast from your own Spanish proverb, ‘ To-day to me, to- 
morrow to thee ! 9 ” 

“ I drink it, brave Sefior. Your courtesy shows you the Avorthy 
countryman of General Drake, and his brave lieutenant.” 

“ Drake! Did you know him, Senor? ” asked all the Englishmen 
at once. 

“ Too well, too well ” and he would have continued: but the 

bishop burst out — 

“Ah, Senor Commandant! that name again! Have you no mercy? 

To sit between another pair of , and my own wine, too! Ugh, 

ugh!” 

The old gentleman, whose mouth had been full of turtle the whole 


486 


Westward Ho ! 

time, burst into a violent fit of coughing, and was only saved from 
apoplexy by Cary’s patting him on the back. 

“ Ugh, ugh! The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel, and their 
precious balms. Ah, Senor Lieutenant Englishman ! May I ask you 
to pass those limes? — Ah! what is turtle without lime? — Even as a 
fat old man without money! Nudus intravi, nudus exeo — ah! ” 

“ But what of Drake? ” 

“ Do you not know, sir, that he and his fleet, only last year, swept 
the whole of this coast, and took, with shame I confess it, Carthagena, 
San Domingo, St. Augustine, and — I see you are too courteous, 
Senors, to express before me what you have a right to feel. But 
whence come you, sir? From the skies, or the depth of the sea? ” 

“Art-magic, art-magic! ” moaned the bishop. 

“Your holiness! It is scarcely prudent to speak thus here,” said 
the Commandant, who was nevertheless much of the same opinion. 

“ Why, you said so yourself, last night, Senor, about the taking of 
Carthagena.” 

The Commandant blushed, and stammered out somewhat — “ That 
it was excusable in him, if he had said in jest, that so prodigious and 
curious a valor had not sprung from mortal source.” 

“ No more it did, Senor,” said Jack Brimblecombe, stoutly: “ but 
from Him who taught our ‘ hands to war, and our fingers to fight.’ ” 

The Commandant bowed stiffly. “ You will excuse me, Sir 
Preacher; but I am a Catholic, and hold the cause of my king to be 
alone the cause of Heaven. But, Senor Captain, how came you 
hither, if I may ask? That you needed no art-magic after you came 
on board, I, alas! can testify but too well: but what spirit — whether 
good or evil, I ask not — brought you on board, and whence? Where 
is your ship ? I thought that all Drake’s squadron had left six months 
ago.” 

“ Our ship, Senor, has lain this three years rotting on the coast near 
Cape Codera.” 

“Ah! we heard of that bold adventure — but we thought you all lost 
in the interior.” 

“ You did? Can you tell me, then, where the Senor Governor of 
La Guayra may be now? ” 

“ The Senor Don Guzman de Soto,” said the Commandant, in a 
somewhat constrained tone, “ is said to be at present in Spain, having 
thrown up his office in consequence of domestic matters, of which I 
have not the honor of knowing anything.” 


The Great Galleon 487 

Amyas longed to ask more: but he knew that the well-bred Spaniard 
would tell him nothing which concerned another man’s wife; and 
went on. 

“ What befell us after, I tell you frankly.” 

And Amyas told his story, from the landing at Guayra to the pas- 
sage down the Magdalena. The Commandant lifted up his hands. 

“ Were it not forbidden to me, as a Catholic, most invincible Senor, 
I should say that the Divine protection has indeed ” 

“Ah,” said one of the friars, “ that you could be brought, Senors, to 
render thanks for your miraculous preservation to her to whom alone 
it is due, Mary, the fount of mercies! ” 

“ We have done well enough without her as yet,” said Amyas, 
bluntly. 

“ The Lord raised up Nebuchadnezzar of old to punish the sins of 
the J ewish church ; and He has raised up these men to punish ours ! ” 
said Fray Gerundio. 

“ But Nebuchadnezzar fell, and so may they,” growled the other to 
himself. Jack overheard him. 

“ I say, my Lord Bishop,” called he from the other end of the table. 
“ It is our English custom, to let our guests be as rude as they like; 
but, perhaps your Lordship will hint to these two friars that if they 
wish to keep whole skins, they will keep civil tongues.” 

“ Be silent, asses ! mules ! ” shouted the bishop, whose spirits were 
improving over the wine; “ who are you, that you cannot eat dirt as 
well as your betters ? 99 

“ Well spoken, my Lord. Here’s the health of our saintly and 
venerable guest,” said Cary: while the Commandant whispered to 
Amyas, “ Fat old tyrant! I hope you have found his money — for I 
am sure he has some on board, and I should be loath that you lost the 
advantage of it.” 

“ I shall have to say a few words to you about that money this morn- 
ing, Commandant: by the by, they had better be said now. My Lord 
Bishop, do you know that had we not taken this ship when we did, you 
had lost not merely money, as you have now, but life itself? ” 

“ Money? I had none to lose! Life? — what do you mean? ” asked 
the bishop, turning very pale. 

“ This, sir. That it ill befits one to lie, whose throat has been saved 
from the assassin’s knife but four hours since. When we entered the 
stern-gallery, we found two persons, now on board this ship, in the 
very act, sir, and article, of cutting your sinful throat, that they might 


488 


Westward Ho ! 

rob you of the casket which lay beneath your pillow. A moment more, 
and you were dead. We seized and bound them, and so saved your 
life. Is that plain, sir? ” 

The bishop looked steadfastly and stupidly into Amyas’s face, 
heaved a deep sigh, and gradually sank back in his chair, dropping the 
glass from his hand. 

“ He is in a fit ! Call in the surgeon ! Run ! ” and up jumped kind- 
hearted Jack, and brought in the surgeon of the galleon. 

“ Is this possible, Senor? ”, asked the Commandant. 

“ It is true. Door, there ! Evans ! Go and bring in that rascal 
whom we left bound in his cabin! ” 

Evans went, and the Commandant continued, — 

“ But the stern-gallery? How, in the name of all witches and 
miracles, came your valor thither? ” 

“ Simply enough, and owing neither to witch nor miracle. The 
night before last we passed the mouth of the bay in our two canoes, 
which we had lashed together after the fashion I had seen in the 
Moluccas, to keep them afloat in the surf. We had scraped the canoes 
bright the day before, and rubbed them with white clay, that they 
might be invisible at night ; and so we got safely to the Morro Grande, 
passing within half a mile of your ship.” 

“ Oh ! my scoundrels of sentinels ! ” 

“ We landed at the back of the Morro, and lay there all day, being 
purposed to do that which, with your pardon, we have done. We took 
our sails of Indian cloth, whitened them likewise with clay which we 
had brought with us from the river (expecting to find a Spanish ship 
as we went along the coast, and determined to attempt her, or die 
with honor) , and laid them over us on the canoes, paddling from un- 
derneath them. So that, had your sentinels been awake, they would 
have hardly made us out, till we were close on board. We had pro- 
vided ourselves, instead of ladders, with bamboos rigged with cross- 
pieces, and a hook of strong wood at the top of each; they hang at 
your stern-gallery now. And the rest of the tale I need not tell you.” 

The Commandant rose in his courtly Spanish way, — 

“ Your admirable story, Senor, proves to me how truly your nation, 
while it has yet, and I trust will ever have, to dispute the palm of 
valor with our own, is famed throughout the world for ingenuity, and 
for daring beyond that of mortal man. You have succeeded, valiant 
Captain, because you have deserved to succeed; and it is no shame to 
me to succumb to enemies, who have united the cunning of the serpent 


489 


The Great Galleon 

with the valor of the lion. Senor, I feel as proud of becoming your 
guest as I should have been proud, under a happier star, of becoming 
your host.” 

“You are, like your nation, only too generous, Senor. But what 
noise is that outside? Cary, go and see.” 

But ere Cary could reach the door, it was opened; and Evans pre- 
sented himself with a terrified face. 

“ Here’s villainy, sir! The Don’s murdered, and cold; the Indian 
lass fled; and as we searched the ship for her, we found an English- 
woman, as I’m a sinful man! — and a shocking sight she is to see! ” 

“An Englishwoman? ” cried all three, springing forward. 

“ Bring her in! ” said Amyas, turning very pale; and as he spoke, 
Yeo and another led into the cabin a figure scarcely human. 

An elderly woman, dressed in the yellow “ San Benito ” of the In- 
quisition, with ragged gray locks hanging about a countenance dis- 
torted by suffering, and shrunk by famine. Painfully, as one 
unaccustomed to the light, she peered and blinked round her. Her 
fallen lip gave her a half-idiotic expression; and yet there was an 
uneasy twinkle in the eye, as of boundless terror and suspicion. She 
lifted up her fettered wrist to shade her face: and as she did so, dis- 
closed a line of fearful scars upon her skinny arm. 

“ Look there, sirs! ” said Yeo, pointing to them with a stern smile. 
“ Here’s some of these Popish gentry’s handiwork. I know well 
enough how those marks came; ” and he pointed to the similar scars 
on his own wrist. 

The Commandant, as well as the Englishmen, recoiled with horror. 

“ Holy Virgin! what wretch is this on board my ship? Bishop, is 
this the prisoner whom you sent on board? ” 

The bishop, who had been slowly recovering his senses, looked at 
her a moment; and then thrusting his chair back, crossed himself, and 
almost screamed, “ Malefica! Malefica! Who brought her here? 
Turn her away, gentlemen; turn her eye away; she will bewitch, 
fascinate ” — and he began muttering prayers. 

Amyas seized him by the shoulder, and shook him on to his legs. 

“ Swine! who is this? Wake up, coward, and tell me, or I will 
cut you piecemeal! ” 

But ere the bishop could answer, the woman uttered a wild shriek, 
and pointing to the taller of the two monks, cowered behind Yeo. 

“He here?” cried she in broken Spanish. “Take me away! I 
will tell you no more. I have told you all, and lies enough beside. 


490 Westward Ho ! 

Oh! why is he come again? Did they not say that I should have no 
more torments? ” 

The monk turned pale: but like a wild beast at bay, glared firmly 
round on the whole company; and then, fixing his dark eyes full on 
the woman, he bade her be silent so sternly that she shrank down like 
a beaten hound. 

“ Silence, dog! ” said Will Cary, whose blood was up, and followed 
his words with a blow on the monk’s mouth, which silenced him 
effectually. 

“ Don’t be afraid, good woman, but speak English. We are all 
English here, and Protestants too. Tell us what they have done for 
you.” 

“Another trap ! another trap ! ” cried she, in a strong Devonshire 
accent. “ You be no English! You want to make me lie again, and 
then torment me. Oh! wretched, wretched that I am!” cried she, 
bursting into tears. “Whom should I trust? Not myself: no, nor 
God ; for I have denied Him ! O Lord ! O Lord ! ” 

Amyas stood silent with fear and horror; some instinct told him 
that he was on the point of hearing news for which he feared to ask. 
But Jack spoke — 

“ My dear soul! my dear soul! don’t you be afraid; and the Lord 
will stand by you, if you will but tell the truth. We are all English- 
men, and men of Devon, as you seem to be by your speech; and this 
ship is ours; and the pope himself shan’t touch you.” 

“Devon?” she said, doubtingly; “Devon! Whence, then?” 

“ Bideford men. This is Mr. Will Cary, to Clovelly. If you are 
a Devon woman, you’ve heard tell of the Carys, to be sure.” 

The woman made a rush forward, and threw her fettered arms 
round Will’s neck, — 

“ Oh, Mr. Cary, my dear life! Mr. Cary! and so you be! Oh, 
dear soul alive! but you’re burnt so brown, and I be ’most blind with 
misery. Oh, who ever sent you here, my dear Mr. Will, then, to save 
a poor wretch from the pit? ” 

“ Who on earth are you? ” 

“ Lucy Passmore, the white witch to Welcombe. Don’t you mind 
Lucy Passmore, as charmed your warts for you when you was a boy? ” 

“Lucy Passmore!” almost shrieked all three friends. “ She that 
went off with ” 

“Yes! she that sold her own soul, and persuaded that dear saint to 
sell hers; she that did the devil’s work, and has taken the devil’s 


The Great Galleon 491 

wages ; — after this fashion ! ” and she held up her scarred wrists 
wildly. 

“ Where is Dona de — Rose Salterne? ” shouted Will and Jack. 

“ Where is my brother Frank? ” shouted Amyas. 

“ Dead, dead, dead! ” 

“ I knew it,” said Amyas, sitting down again calmly. 

“ How did she die? ” 

“The Inquisition — he!” pointing to the monk. “Ask him — he 
betrayed her to her death. And ask him!” pointing to the bishop; 
“ he sat by her and saw her die.” 

“ Woman, you rave! ” said the bishop, getting up with a terrified 
air, and moving as far as possible from Amyas. 

“ How did my brother die, Lucy? ” asked Amyas, still calmly. 

“ Who be you, sir? ” 

A gleam of hope flashed across Amyas — she had not answered his 
question. 

“ I am Amyas Leigh of Burrough. Do you know aught of my 
brother Frank, who was lost at La Guayra? ” 

“ Mr. Amyas! Heaven forgive me, that I did not know the big- 
ness of you. Your brother, sir, died like a gentleman as he was.” 

“ But how? ” gasped Amyas. 

“ Burned with her, sir! ” 

“ Is this true, sir? ” said Amyas, turning to the bishop, with a very 
quiet voice. 

“ I, sir? ” stammered he, in panting haste. “ I had nothing to do — 
I was compelled in my office of bishop to be an unwilling spectator — 
the secular arm, sir; I could not interfere with that — any more than 
I can with the Holy Office. I do not belong to it — ask that gen- 
tleman — sir! Saints and angels, sir! what are you going to do?” 
shrieked he, as Amyas laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder, and began 
to lead him toward the door. 

“Hang you!” said Amyas. “If I had been a Spaniard and a 
priest like yourself, I should have burned you alive.” 

“Hang me?” shrieked the wretched old Balaam; and burst into 
abject howls for mercy. 

“ Take the dark monk, Yeo, and hang him too. Lucy Passmore, 
do you know that fellow also?” 

“ No, sir,” said Lucy. 

“ Lucky for you, Fray Gerundio,” said Will Cary; while the good 
friar hid his face in his hands, and burst into tears. Lucky it was for 


492 


Westward Ho ! 

him, indeed; for he had been a pitying spectator of the tragedy. 
“Ah! ” thought he, “ if life in this mad and sinful world be a reward, 
perhaps this escape is vouchsafed to me for having pleaded the cause 
of the poor Indian! ” 

But the bishop shrieked on. 

“ Oh! not yet. An hour, only an hour! I am not fit to die.” 

“ That is no concern of mine,” said Amyas. “ I only know that you 
are not fit to live.” 

“ Let us at least make our peace with God,” said the dark monk. 

“ Hound! if your saints can really smuggle you up the back stairs 
to heaven, they will do it without five minutes’ more coaxing and 
flattering.” 

Fray Gerundio and the condemned man alike stopped their ears 
at the blasphemy. 

“Oh, Fray Gerundio!” screamed the bishop, ‘‘pray for me. I 
have treated you like a beast. Oh, Fray, Fray ! ” 

“ Oh my Lord! my Lord! ” said the good man, as with tears stream- 
ing down his face he followed his shrieking and struggling diocesan 
up the stairs, “ Who am I? Ask no pardon of me. Ask pardon of 
God for all your sins against the poor innocent savages, when you saw 
your harmless sheep butchered year after year, and yet never lifted 
up your voice to save the flock which God had committed to you. 
Oh, confess that, my lord! confess it ere it be too late! ” 

“ I will confess all about the Indians, and the gold, and Tita too, 
Fray; peccavi, peccavi — only five minutes, Senors, five little minutes’ 
grace, while I confess to the good Fray!” — and he groveled on the 
deck. 

“ I will have no such mummery where I command,” said Amyas, 
sternly. “ I will be no accomplice in cheating Satan of his due.” 

“ If you will confess,” said Brimblecombe, whose heart was melting 
fast, “ confess to the Lord, and He will forgive you. Even at the 
last moment mercy is open. Is it not, Fray Gerundio? ” 

“ It is, Senor; it is, my lord,” said Gerundio: but the bishop only 
clasped his hands over his head. 

“ Then I am undone! All my money is stolen! Not a farthing 
left to buy masses for my poor soul ! And no absolution, no viaticum, 
nor anything! I die like a dog, and am damned! ” 

“ Clear away that running rigging!” said Amyas, while the dark 
Dominican stood perfectly collected, with something of a smile of pity 
at the miserable bishop. A man accustomed to cruelty, and firm in 


493 


The Great Galleon 

his fanaticism, he was as ready to endure suffering as to inflict it ; re- 
peating to himself the necessary prayers, he called Fray Gerundio to 
witness that he died, however unworthy, a martyr, in charity with all 
men, and in the communion of the Holy Catholic Church; and then, 
as he fitted the cord to his own neck, gave Fray Gerundio various 
petty commissions about his sister and her children, and a little vine- 
yard far away upon the sunny slopes of Castile; and so died, with a 
“ Domine in manus tuas,” like a valiant man of Spain. 

Amyas stood long in solemn silence, watching the two corpses 
dangling above his head. At last he drew a long breath, as if a load 
was taken off his heart. 

Suddenly he looked round to his men, who were watching eagerly, 
to know what he would have done next. 

“ Hearken to me, my masters all, and may God hearken too, and 
do so to me, and more also, if, as long as I have eyes to see a Spaniard, 
and hands to hew him down, I do any other thing than hunt down that 
accursed nation day and night, and avenge all the innocent blood which 
has been shed by them since the day in which King Ferdinand drove 
out the Moors ! ” 

“Amen! ” said Salvation Yeo. “ I need not to swear that oath; for 
I have sworn it long ago, and kept it. Will your honor have us kill 
the rest of the idolaters? ” 

“ God forbid! ” said Cary. “ You would not do that, Amyas? ” 

“No; we will spare them. God has shown us a great mercy this 
day, and we must be merciful in it. We will land them at Cabo 
Velo. But henceforth till I die no quarter to a Spaniard.” 

“Amen! ” said Yeo. 

Amyas’s whole countenance had changed in the last half hour. He 
seemed to have grown years older. His brow was wrinkled, his lip 
compressed, his eyes full of a terrible stony calm, as of one who had 
formed a great and dreadful purpose; and yet for that very reason 
could afford to be quiet under the burden of it, even cheerful; and 
when he returned to the cabin, he bowed courteously to the Com- 
mandant, begged pardon of him for having played the host so ill, 
and entreated him to finish his breakfast. 

“ But, Senor — is it possible? Is his holiness dead? ” 

“ He is hanged and dead, Senor. I would have hanged, could I 
have caught them, every living thing which was present at my brother’s 
death, even to the very flies upon the wall. No more words, Senor; 
your conscience tells you that I am just.” 


494 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Senor,” said the Commandant — “ One word — I trust there are 
no listeners — none of my crew, I mean; but I must exculpate myself 
in your eyes.” 

“ Walk out, then, into the gallery with me.” 

“ To tell you the truth, Senor — I trust in Heaven no one over- 
hears. — You are just. This Inquisition is the curse of us, the weight 
which is crushing out the very life of Spain. No man dares speak. 
No man dares trust his neighbor, no, not his child, or the wife of his 
bosom. It avails nothing to be a good Catholic, as I trust I am,” and 
he crossed himself, “ when any villain whom you may offend, any un- 
natural son or wife who wishes to be rid of you, has but to hint heresy 
against you, and you vanish into the Holy Office — and then God have 
mercy on you, for man has none. Noble ladies of my family, sir, have 
vanished thither, carried off by night, we know not why; we dare not 
ask why. To expostulate, even to inquire, would have been to share 
their fate. There is one now, Senor — Heaven alone knows whether 
she is alive or dead ! — It was nine years since ; and we have never heard ; 
and we shall never hear.” 

And the Commandant’s face worked frightfully. 

“ She was my sister, Senor! ” 

“ Heavens! sir, and have you not avenged her? ” 

“ On churchmen, Senor, and I a Catholic? To be burned at the 
stake in this life, and after that to all eternity beside? Even a Span- 
iard dare not face that. Beside, sir, the mob like this Inquisition ; and 
an Auto-da-Fe is even better sport to them than a bull-fight. They 
would be the first to tear a man in pieces who dare touch an Inquisitor. 
Sir, may all the saints in heaven obtain me forgiveness for my blas- 
phemy, but when I saw you just now fearing those churchmen no more 
than you feared me, I longed, sinner that I am, to be a heretic like you. ” 

“ It will not take long to make a brave and wise gentleman who has 
suffered such things as you have, a heretic, as you call it — a free Chris- 
tian man, as we call it.” 

“ Tempt me not, sir! ” said the poor man, crossing himself fervently. 
“ Let us say no more. Obedience is my duty; and for the rest the 
church must decide, according to her infallible authority — for I am a 
good Catholic, Senor, the best of Catholics, though a great sinner. — I 
trust no one has overheard us! ” 

Amyas left him with a smile of pity, and went to look for Lucy 
Passmore, whom the sailors were nursing and feeding, while Ayaca- 
nora watched them with a puzzled face. 


495 


The Great Galleon 

“ I will talk to you when you are better, Lucy,” said he, taking her 
hand. “Now you must eat and drink, and forget all among us lads 
of Devon.” 

“ Oh, dear blessed sir, and you will send Sir John to pray with me? 
For I turned, sir, I turned: but I could not help it — I could not abear 
the torments: but she bore them, sweet angel — and more than I did. 
Oh, dear me! ” 

“ Lucy, I am not fit now to hear more. You shall tell me all to- 
morrow ; ” and he turned away. 

“Why do you take her hand?” said Ayacanora, half scornfully. 
“ She is old, and ugly, and dirty.” 

“ She is an Englishwoman, child, and a martyr, poor thing; and I 
would nurse her as I would my own mother.” 

“ Why don’t you make me an Englishwoman, and a martyr? I 
could learn how to do anything that that old hag could do! ” 

“ Instead of calling her names, go and tend her; that would be 
much fitter work for a woman than fighting among men.” 

Ayacanora darted from him, thrust the sailors aside, and took 
possession of Lucy Passmore. 

“ Where shall I put her? ” asked she of Amyas, without looking up. 

“ In the best cabin; and let her be served like a queen, lads.” 

“No one shall touch her but me; ” and taking up the withered frame 
in her arms, as if it were a doll, Ayacanora walked off with her in 
triumph, telling the men to go and mind the ship. 

“ The girl is mad,” said one. 

“ Mad or not, she has an eye to our captain,” said another. 

“And where’s the man that would behave to the poor wild thing as 
he does? ” 

“Sir Francis Drake would, from whom he got his lesson. Do you 
mind his putting the negro lass ashore after he found out about 

“ Hush. Bygones be bygones, and those that did it are in their 
graves long ago. But it was too hard of him on the poor thing.” 

“ If he had not got rid of her, there would have been more throats 
than one cut about the lass, that’s all I know,” said another; “ and so 
there would have been about this one before now, if the Captain wasn’t 
a born angel out of heaven, and the lieutenant no less.” 

“ Well, I suppose we may get a whet by now. I wonder if these 
Dons have any beer aboard.” 

“ Nought but grape vinegar, which fools call wine, I’ll warrant.” 

“ There was better than vinegar on the table in there just now.” 


496 


Westward Ho ! 

“Ah,” said one grumbler of true English breed, “ but that’s not for 
poor fellows like we.” 

“ Don’t lie, Tom Evans; you never were given that way yet, and I 
don’t think the trade will suit a good fellow like you.” 

The whole party stared; for the speaker of these words was none 
other than Amyas himself, who had rejoined them, a bottle in each 
hand. 

“ No, Tom Evans. It has been share and share alike for three 
years, and bravely you have all held up, and share alike it shall be now, 
and here’s the handsel of it. We’ll serve out the good wine fairly all 
round as long as it lasts, and then take to the bad: but mind you don’t 
get drunk, my sons, for we are much too short of hands to have any 
stout fellows lying about the scuppers.” 

But what was the story of the intendant’s being murdered? 
Brimblecombe had seen him run into a neighboring cabin; and when 
the door of it was opened, there was the culprit, but dead and cold, 
with a deep knife wound in his side. Who could have done the deed? 
It must have been Tita, whom Brimblecombe had seen loose, and try- 
ing to free her lover. 

The ship was searched from stem to stern: but no Tita. The mys- 
tery was never explained. That she had leaped overboard, and tried 
to swim ashore none doubted: but whether she had reached it, who 
could tell? One thing was strange; that not only had she carried off 
no treasure with her, but that the gold ornaments which she had worn 
the night before, lay together in a heap on the table, close by the mur- 
dered man. Had she wished to rid herself of everything which had 
belonged to her tyrants? 

The Commandant heard the whole story thoughtfully. 

“Wretched man!” said he, “and he has a wife and children in 
Seville.” 

“A wife and children?” said Amyas; “and I heard him promise 
marriage to the Indian girl.” 

That was the only hint which gave a reason for his death. What if, 
in the terror of discovery and capture, the scoundrel had dropped any 
self -condemning words about his marriage, any prayer for those whom 
he had left behind, and the Indian had overheard them? It might be 
so; at least sin had brought its own punishment. 

And so that wild night and day subsided. The prisoners were 
kindly used enough; for the Englishman, free from any petty love of 
tormenting, knows no mean between killing a foe outright, and treat- 


The Gre&t Galleon 497 

ing him as a brother; and when, two days afterward, they were sent 
ashore in the canoes off Cabo Veto, captives and captors shook hands 
all round; and Amyas, after returning the Commandant his sword, 
and presenting him with a case of the bishop's wine, bowed him 
courteously over the side. 

“ I trust that you will pay us another visit, valiant Senor Capitan," 
said the Spaniard, bowing and smiling. 

“ I should most gladly accept your invitation, illustrious Senor 
Commandant ; but as I have vowed henceforth, whenever I shall meet 
a Spaniard, neither to give nor take quarter, I trust that our paths to 
glory may lie in different directions." 

The Commandant shrugged his shoulders; the ship was put again 
before the wind, and as the shores of the Main faded lower and dimmer 
behind her, a mighty cheer broke from all on board; and for once 
the cry from every mouth was Eastward-ho! 

Scrap by scrap, as weakness and confusion of intellect permitted 
her, Lucy Passmore told her story. It was a simple one after all, and 
Amyas might almost have guessed it for himself. Rose had not 
yielded to the Spaniard without a struggle. He had visited her two 
or three times at Lucy’s house (how he found out Lucy’s existence she 
herself could never tell, unless from the Jesuits) before she agreed to 
go with him. He had gained Lucy to his side by huge promises of 
Indian gold; and, in fine, they had gone to Lundy, where the lovers 
were married by a priest, who was none other, Lucy would swear, than 
the shorter and stouter of the two who had carried off her husband and 
his boat — in a word, Father Parsons. 

Amyas gnashed his teeth at the thought that he had had Parsons in 
his power at Brenttor down, and let him go. It was a fresh proof to 
him that Heaven’s vengeance was upon him for letting one of its 
enemies escape. Though what good to Rose or Frank the hanging of 
Parsons would have been, I, for my part, cannot see. 

But when had Eustace been at Lundy? Lucy could throw no light 
on that matter. It was evidently some by-thread in the huge spider’s 
web of Jesuit intrigue, which was, perhaps, not worth knowing 
after all. 

They sailed from Lundy in a Portugal ship, were at Lisbon a few 
days (during which Rose and Lucy remained on board), and then 
away for the West Indies; while all went merry as a marriage bell. 
“ Sir, he would have kissed the dust off her dear feet, till that evil eye 
of Mr. Eustace’s came, no one knew how or whence." And, from 


498 


Westward Ho I 

that time, all went wrong. Eustace got power over Don Guzman, 
whether by threatening that the marriage should be dissolved, whether 
by working on his superstitious scruples about leaving his wife still a 
heretic, or whether (and this last Lucy much suspected) by insinua- 
tions that her heart was still at home in England, and that she was 
longing for Amyas and his ship to come and take her home again; the 
house soon became a den of misery, and Eustace the presiding evil 
genius. Don Guzman had even commanded him to leave it — and he 
went ; but, somehow, within a week he was there again, in greater favor 
than ever. Then came preparations to meet the English, and high 
words about it between Don Guzman and Rose; till a few days before 
Amyas’s arrival, the Don had dashed out of the house in a fury, say- 
ing openly that she preferred these Lutheran dogs to him, and that 
he would have their hearts’ blood first, and hers after. 

The rest was soon told. Amyas knew but too much of it already. 
The very morning after he had gone up to the villa, Lucy and her 
mistress were taken (they knew not by whom) down to the quay, in 
the name of the Holy Office, and shipped off to Carthagena. 

There they were examined, and confronted on a charge of witch- 
craft, which the wretched Lucy could not well deny. She was 
tortured to make her inculpate Rose; and what she said, or did not 
say, under the torture, the poor wretch could never tell. She recanted, 
and became a Romanist; Rose remained firm. Three weeks after- 
ward, they were brought out to an Auto-da-Fe; and there, for the first 
time, Lucy saw Frank walking, dressed in a San Benito, in that 
ghastly procession. Lucy was adjudged to receive publicly two hun- 
dred stripes, and to be sent to “ The Holy House ” at Seville to per- 
petual prison. Frank and Rose, with a renegade Jew, and a negro 
who had been convicted of practising “ Obi,” were sentenced to death 
as impenitent, and delivered over to the secular arm, with prayers 
that there might be no shedding of blood. In compliance with which 
request, the Jew and the negro were burnt at one stake, Frank and 
Rose at another. She thought they did not feel it more than twenty 
minutes. They were both very bold and steadfast, and held each 
other’s hand (that she would swear to) to the very last. 

And so ended Lucy Passmore’s story. And if Amyas Leigh, after 
he had heard it, vowed afresh to give no quarter to Spaniards wher- 
ever he should find them, who can wonder, even if they blame? 


CHAPTER XXV11. 

How Salvation %o found his Little M&id again. 

“All precious things, discover'd late, 

To them who seek them issue forth ; 

For love in sequel works with fate, 

And draws the veil from hidden worth." 

The Sleeping Beauty. 

And so Ayacanora took up her abode in Lucy’s cabin, as a regularly 
accredited member of the crew. 

But a most troublesome member; for now began in her that perilous 
crisis which seems to endanger the bodies and souls of all savages and 
savage tribes, when they first mingle with the white man; that crisis 
which, a few years afterward, began to hasten the extermination of 
the North American tribes; and had it not been for the admirable good 
sense and constancy of Amyas, Ayacanora might have ended even 
more miserably than did the far-famed Pocahontas, daughter of the 
Virginian king; who, after having been received at court by the old 
pedant James the First, with the honors of a sister sovereign, and 
having become the reputed ancestress of more than one ancient 
Virginian family, ended her days in wretchedness in some Wapping 
garret. 

For the mind of the savage, crushed by the sight of the white man’s 
superior skill, and wealth, and wisdom, loses at first its self-respect; 
while his body, pampered with easily-obtained luxuries instead of 
having to win the necessaries of life by heavy toil, loses its self -help- 
fulness; and with self-respect and self-help vanish all the savage vir- 
tues, few and flimsy as they are, and the downward road toward 
begging and stealing, sottishness and idleness, is easy, if not sure. 

And down that road, it really seemed at first, that poor Ayacanora 
was walking fast. For the warrior-prophetess of the Omaguas soon 
became, to all appearance, nothing but a very naughty child; and the 
Diana of the Meta, after she had satisfied her simple wonder at the 
great floating house by rambling from deck to deck and peeping into 
every cupboard and cranny, manifested a great propensity to steal and 
hide (she was too proud or too shy to ask for) every trumpery which 


500 


Westward Ho ! 

smit her fancy; and when Amyas forbade her to take anything without 
leave, threatened to drown herself, and went off and sulked all day in 
her cabin. Nevertheless, she obeyed him, except in the matter of 
sweet things. Perhaps she craved naturally for the vegetable food of 
her native forests ; at all events, the bishop’s stores of fruit and sweet 
meats diminished rapidly; and what was worse, so did the sweet 
Spanish wine, which Amyas had set apart for poor Lucy’s daily cor- 
dial. Whereon another severe lecture, in which Amyas told her how 
mean it was to rob poor sick Lucy; whereat she as usual threatened 
to drown herself; and was running upon deck to do it, when Amyas 
caught her, and forgave her. On which a violent fit of crying, and 
great penitence and promises; and a week after, Amyas found that 
she had cheated Satan and her own conscience, by tormenting the 
Portuguese steward into giving her some other wine instead: but 
luckily for her, she found Amyas’s warnings about wine making her 
mad so far fulfilled, that she did several foolish things one evening, 
and had a bad headache next morning; so the murder was out, and 
Amyas ordered the steward up for a sound flogging: but Ayacanora, 
honorably enough, not only begged him off, but offered to be whipped 
instead of him, confessing that the poor fellow spoke truly, when he 
swore that she had threatened to kill him, and that he had given her 
the wine in bodily fear for his life. 

However, her own headache and Amyas’s cold looks were lesson 
enough, and after another attempt to drown herself, the wilful beauty 
settled down for a while; and what was better, could hardly be per- 
suaded, thenceforth to her dying day, to touch fermented liquors. 

But in the meanwhile, poor Amyas had many a brains-beating as to 
how he was to tame a lady, who on the least provocation took refuge 
in suicide. Punish her he dared not, even if he had the heart. And 
as for putting her ashore, he had an instinct, and surely not a supersti- 
tious one, that her strange affection for the English was not unsent by 
Heaven, and that God had committed her into his charge, and that 
He would require an account at his hands of the soul of that fair 
lost lamb. 

So, almost at his wit’s end, he prayed to God, good simple fellow, 
and that many a time, to show him what he should do with her, before 
she killed either herself, or what was just as likely, one of the crew; 
and it seemed best to him to make Parson Jack teach her the rudiments 
of Christianity, that she might be baptized in due time when they got 
home to England. 


How Salvation Tfeo found his Little Maid. 501 

But here arose a fresh trouble — for she roundly refused to learn of 
Jack, or of any one but Amyas himself; while he had many a good 
reason for refusing the office of schoolmaster; so for a week or two 
more, Ayacanora remained untaught, save in the English tongue, 
which she picked up with marvelous rapidity. 

And next, as if troubles would never end, she took a violent dislike, 
not only to J ohn Brimblecombe, whose gait and voice she openly mim- 
icked for the edification of the men; but also to Will Cary, whom she 
never allowed to speak to her or approach her. Perhaps she was 
jealous of his intimacy with Amyas: or perhaps, with the subtle in- 
stinct of a woman, she knew that he was the only other man on board 
who might dare to make love to her (though Will, to do him justice, 
was as guiltless of any such intention as Amyas himself) . But when 
she was remonstrated with, her only answer was, that Cary was a 
cacique, as well as Amyas, and that there ought not to be two caciques ; 
and one day she actually proposed to Amyas to kill his supposed rival, 
and take the ship all to himself ; and sulked for several days at hearing 
Amyas, amid shouts of laughter, retail her precious advice to its in- 
tended victim. 

Moreover, the Negroes came in for their share, being regarded all 
along by her with an unspeakable repugnance, which showed itself at 
first in hiding from them whenever she could, and afterward, in 
throwing at them everything she could lay hands on, till the poor 
Quashies, in danger of their lives, complained to Amyas, and got rest 
for a while. 

Over the rest of the sailors she lorded it like a very princess, calling 
them from their work to run on her errands and make toys for her, 
enforcing her commands now and then by a shrewd box on the ears; 
while the good fellows, especially old Yeo, like true sailors, petted her, 
obeyed her, even jested with her, much as they might have done with 
a tame leopard, whose claws might be unsheathed and about their ears 
at any moment. But she amused them, and amused Amyas too. 
They must of course have a pet; and what prettier one could they 
have? And as for Amyas, the constant interest of her presence, even 
the constant anxiety of her wilfulness, kept his mind busy, and drove 
out many a sad foreboding about that meeting with his mother, and 
the tragedy which he had to tell her, which would otherwise, so heavily 
did they weigh on him, have crushed his spirit with melancholy, and 
made ail his worldly success and marvelous deliverance worthless in his 
eyes. 


502 Westward Ho ! 

At last the matter, as most things luckily do, came to a climax ; and 
it came in this way. 

The ship had been slipping along now for many a day, slowly but 
steadily before a favorable breeze. She had passed the ring of the 
West India islands, and was now crawling, safe from all pursuit, 
through the vast weed-beds of the Sargasso Sea. There, for the first 
time, it was thought safe to relax the discipline which had been hitherto 
kept up, and to “ rummage ” (as was the word in those days) their 
noble prize. What they found, of gold and silver, jewels, and mer- 
chandise, will interest no readers. Suffice it to say, that there was 
enough there, with the other treasure, to make Amyas rich for life, 
after all claims of Cary’s and the crew, not forgetting Mr. Salterne’s 
third, as owner of the ship, had been paid off. But in the captain’s 
cabin were found two chests, one full of gorgeous Mexican feather 
dresses, and the other of Spanish and East Indian finery, which, hav- 
ing come by way of Havanna and Carthagena, was going on, it 
seemed, to some Senora or other at the Carraccas. Which two chests 
were, at Cary’s proposal, voted amid the acclamations of the crew to 
Avacanora, as her due and fit share of the pillage, in consideration of 
her Amazonian prowess and valuable services. 

So the poor child took greedy possession of the trumpery, had them 
carried into Lucy’s cabin, and there knelt gloating over them many an 
hour. The Mexican work she chose to despise as savage; but the 
Spanish dresses were a treasure; and for two or three days she ap- 
peared on the quarter-deck, sunning herself like a peacock before the 
eyes of Amyas in Seville mantillas, Madrid hats, Indian brocade far- 
thingales, and I know not how many other gewgaws, and dare not say 
how put on. 

The crow tittered: Amyas felt much more inclined to cry. There is 
nothing so pathetic as a child’s vanity, saving a grown person aping a 
child’s vanity; and saving, too, a child’s agony of disappointment when 
it finds that it has been laughed at instead of being admired. Amyas 
would have spoken, but he was afraid: however, the evil brought its 
own cure. The pageant went on, as its actor thought, most success- 
fully for three days or so; but at last the dupe, unable to contain her- 
self longer, appealed to Amyas, — “Ayacanora quite English girl now; 
is she not? ” — heard a titter behind her, looked round, saw a dozen 
honest faces in broad grin, comprehended all in a moment, darted 
down the companion-ladder, and vanished. 

Amyas, fully expecting her to jump overboard, followed as fast as 


How Salvation *5feo found hi* Little Maid 50s 

he could. But she had locked herself in with Lucy, and he could hear 
her violent sobs, and Lucy’s faint voice entreating to know what was 
the matter. 

In vain he knocked. She refused to come out all day, and at even 
they were forced to break the door open, to prevent Lucy being 
starved. 

There sat Ayacanora, her finery half torn off, and scattered about 
the floor in spite, crying still as if her heart would break; while poor 
Lucy cried too, half from fright and hunger, and half for company. 

Amyas tried to comfort the poor child, assured her that the men 
should never laugh at her again; “ But then,” added he, “ you must 
not be so — so ” What to say he hardly knew. 

“ So what? ” asked she, crying more bitterly than ever. 

“ So like a wild girl, Ayacanora.” 

Her hands dropped on her knees: a strong spasm ran through her 
throat and bosom, and she fell on her knees before him, and looked up 
imploringly in his face. 

“Yes; wild girl — poor, bad wild girl. . . . But I will be Eng- 

lish girl now ! ” 

“ Fine clothes will never make you English, my child,” said Amyas. 

“ No ! not English clothes — English heart ! Good heart, like yours ! 
Yes, I will be good, and Sir John shall teach me! ” 

“ There’s my good maid,” said Amyas. “ Sir John shall begin and 
teach you to-morrow.” 

“ No! Now! now! Ayacanora cannot wait. She will drown her- 
self if she is bad another day! Come, now! ” 

And she made him fetch Brimblecombe, heard the honest fellow 
patiently for an hour or more, and told Lucy that very night all that 
he had said. And from that day, whenever J ack went in to read and 
pray with the poor sufferer, Ayacanora, instead of escaping on deck 
as before, stood patiently trying to make it all out, and knelt when he 
knelt, and tried to pray too — that she might have an English heart; 
and doubtless her prayers, dumb as they were, were not unheard. 

So went on a few days more, hopefully enough, without any out- 
break, till one morning, just after they had passed the Sargasso-beds. 
The ship was taking care of herself ; the men were all on deck under the 
awning, tinkering, and cobbling, and chatting; Brimblecombe was cate- 
chizing his fair pupil in the cabin; Amyas and Cary, cigar in mouth, 
were chatting about all heaven and earth, and, above all, of the best way 
of getting up a fresh adventure against the Spaniards as soon as they 


504 


Westward Ho ! 

returned; while Amyas was pouring out to Will that dark hatred of 
the whole nation, that dark purpose of revenge for his brother and for 
Rose, which had settled down like a murky cloud into every cranny of 
his heart and mind. Suddenly there was a noise below; a scuffle and 
a shout, which made them both leap to their feet; and up on deck 
rushed Jack Brimblecombe, holding his head on with both his 
hands. 

“ Save me! save me from that she-fiend! She is possessed with a 
legion! She has broken my nose — torn out half my hair! — and I’m 
sure I have none to spare! Here she comes! Stand by me, gentle- 
men both! Satanas, I defy thee! ” And Jack ensconced himself be- 
hind the pair, as Ayacanora whirled upon deck like a very Maenad, 
and, seeing Amyas, stopped short. 

“ If you had defied Satan down below there,” said Cary, with a 
laugh, “ I suspect he wouldn’t have broken out on you so boldly, 
Master Jack.” 

“ I am innocent — innocent as the babe unborn ! Oh ! Mr. Cary ! this 
is too bad of you, sir! ” quoth Jack indignantly, while Amyas asked 
what was the matter. 

“ He looked at me,” said she, sturdily. 

“ Well, a cat may look at a king.” 

“ But he shan’t look at Ayacanora. Nobody shall but you, or I’ll 
kill him!” 

In vain Jack protested his innocence of having even looked at her. 
The fancy (and I verily believe it was nothing more) had taken pos- 
session of her. She refused to return below to her lesson. Jack went 
off grumbling, minus his hair, and wore a black eye for a week 
after. 

“At all events,” quoth Cary, relighting his cigar, “ it’s a fault on 
the right side.” 

“ God give me grace, or it may be one on the wrong side for me.” 

“He will, old heart-of-oak! ” said Cary, laying his arm around 
Amyas’s neck, to the evident disgust of Ayacanora, who went off to 
the side, got a fishing-line, and began amusing herself therewith, while 
the ship slipped on quietly and silently as ever, save when Ayacanora 
laughed and clapped her hands at the flying-fish scudding from the 
bonitos. At last, tired of doing nothing, she went forward to the 
poop-rail to listen to John Squire, the armorer, who sat tinkering a 
head-piece, and humming a song, mutato nomine, concerning his na- 
tive place, — 


How Salvation Yeo found his Little Maid 505 


‘ 1 Oh, Bideford is a pleasant place, it shines where it stands, 

And the more I look upon it, the more my heart it warms ; 

For there are fair young lasses, in rows upon the quay, 

To welcome gallant mariners, when they come home from say.” 

“ ’Tis Sunderland, John Squire, to the song, and not Bidevor, ,, said 
his mate. 

“ Well, Bidevor’s so good as Sunderland any day, for all there’s no 
say-coals there blacking a place about; and makes just so good har- 
monies, Tommy Hamblyn — 

1 1 Oh, if I was a herring, to swim the ocean 0 ’er, 

Or if I was a say-dove, to fly unto the shoor, 

To fly unto my true love, a waiting at the door, 

To wed her with a goold ring, and plough the main no moor.” 

Here Yeo broke in — 

“Aren’t you ashamed, John Squire, to your years, singing such car- 
nal vanities, after all the providences you have seen? Let the songs of 
Zion be in your mouth, man, if you must needs keep a caterwauling all 
day like that.” 

“ You sing ’em yourself then, gunner.” 

“ Well,” says Yeo, “ and why not? ” And out he pulled his psalm- 
book, and began a scrap of the grand old psalm — 

“Such as in ships and brittle barks 
Into the seas descend, 

Their merchandise through fearful floods 
To compass and to end ; 

There men are forced to behold 
The Lord’s works what they be; 

And in the dreadful deep the same, 

Most marvelous they see.” 

“ Humph! ” said John Squire. “ Very good and godly; but still I 
du like a merry catch now and then, I du. Wouldn’t you let a body 
sing ‘ Rumbelow ’ — even when he’s heaving of the anchor? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know,” said Yeo; “ but the Lord’s people had better 
praise the Lord then too, and pray for a good voyage, instead of howl- 
ing about — 

“A randy, dandy, dandy 0, 

A whet of ale and brandy, 0, 

With a rumbelow and a westward-ho ! 

And heave, my mariners all, 0 ! 


506 


Westwara Ho ! 

“ Is that fit talk for immortal souls? How does that child’s-trade 
sound beside the Psalms, John Squire? ” 

Now it befell that Salvation Yeo, for the very purpose of holding 
up to ridicule that time-honored melody, had put into it the true nasal 
twang, and rung it out as merrily as he had done perhaps twelve years 
before, when he got up John Oxenham’s anchor in Plymouth sound. 
And it befell also, that Ayacanora, as she stood by Amyas’s side, 
watching the men, and trying to make out their chat, heard it, and 
started ; and then, half to herself, took up the strain, and sang it over 
again, word for word, in the very same tune and tone. 

Salvation Yeo started in his turn, and turned deadly pale. 

“ Who sung that? ” he asked quickly. 

“ The little maid here. She’s coming on nicely in her English,” 
said Amyas. 

“ The little maid? ” said Yeo, turning paler still. “ Why do you 
go about to scare an old servant, by talking of little maids, Captain 
Amyas? Well,” he said aloud to himself, “ as I am a sinful saint, if I 
hadn’t seen Avhere the voice came from, I could have sworn it was her; 
just as we taught her to sing it by the river there, I and William Pen- 
berthy of Marazion, my good comrade. The Lord have mercy on 
me!” 

All were silent as the grave whenever Yeo made any allusion to that 
lost child. Ayacanora only, pleased with Amyas’s commendation, 
went humming on to herself — 

“ And heave, my mariners all, O !” 

Yeo started up from the gun where he sat. “ I can’t abear it! As 
I live, I can’t! You, Indian maiden, where did you learn to sing that 
there? ” 

Ayacanora looked up at him, half frightened by his vehemence, then 
at Amyas, to see if she had been doing anything wrong; and then turn- 
ing saucily away, looked over the side, and hummed on. 

“Ask her for mercy’s sake — ask her, Captain Leigh! ” 

“ My child,” said Amyas, speaking in Indian, “ how is it you sing 
that so much better than any other English? Did you ever hear it 
before? ” 

Ayacanora looked up at him puzzled, and shook her head; and 
then — 

“ If you tell Indian to Ayacanora, she dumb. She must be English 
girl now, like poor Lucy.” 


How Salvation "Veo fotmd his Little Maid 507 

“ Well, then,” said Amyas, “ do you recollect, Ayacanora — do you 
recollect — what shall I say ? anything that happened when you were a 
little girl? ” 

She paused a while; and then moving her hands overhead — 

“ Trees — great trees like the Magdalena — always nothing but trees 
— wild and bad everything. Ayacanora won’t talk about that.” 

“Do you mind anything that grew on those trees?” asked Yeo 
eagerly. 

She laughed. “ Silly! Flowers and fruit, and nuts — grow on all 
trees, and monkey-cups too. Ayacanora climbed up after them — 
when she was wild. I won’t tell any more.” 

“ But who taught you to call them monkey-cups? ” asked Yeo, trem- 
bling with excitement. 

“ Monkey’s drink; mono drink.” 

“ Mono? ” said Yeo, foiled on one cast, and now trying another. 
“ How did you know the beasts were called monos? ” 

“ She might have heard it coming down with us,” said Cary, who 
had joined the group. 

“Ay, monos,” said she, in a self-justifying tone. “ Faces like little 
men, and tails. And one very dirty black one, with a beard, say Amen 
in a tree to all the other monkeys, just like Sir John on Sunday.” 

This allusion to Brimblecombe and the preaching apes upset all but 
old Yeo. 

“ But don’t you recollect any Christians? — white people? ” 

She was silent. 

“ Don’t you mind a white lady? ” 

“ Urn? ” 

“ A woman, a very pretty woman, with hair like his? ” pointing to 
Amyas. 

“ No.” 

“What do you mind then, beside those Indians?” added Yeo, in 
despair. 

She turned her back on him peevishly, as if tired with the efforts of 
her memory. 

“ Do try to remember,” said Amyas; and she set to work again at 
once. 

“Ayacanora mind great monkeys — black, oh, so high,” and she held 
up her hand above her head, and made a violent gesture of disgust. 

“ Monkeys? what, with tails? ” 

“ No, like man. Ah! yes— just like Cooky there— dirty Cooky!” 


508 


Westward Ho 8 

And that hapless son of Ham, who happened to be just crossing the 
main-deck, heard a marlingspike, which by ill luck was lying at hand, 
flying past his ears. 

“Ayacanora, if you heave any more things at Cooky, I must have 
you whipped,” said Amyas, without, of course, any such intention. 

“ I’ll kill you, then,” answered she, in the most matter-of-fact tone. 

“ She must mean Negurs,” said Yeo; “ I wonder where she saw 
them, now. What if it were they Cimaroons? ” 

“ But why should any one who had seen whites forget them, and 
yet remember Negroes? ” asked Cary. 

“ Let us try again. Do you mind no great monkeys but those black 
ones? ” asked Amyas. 

“ Yes,” she said, after a while, — “ Devil.” 

“ Devil? ” asked all three, who, of course, were by no means free 
from the belief that the fiend did actually appear to the Indian con- 
jurors, such as had brought up the girl. 

“ Ay, him Sir John tell about on Sundays.” 

“ Save and help us! ” said Yeo: “ and what was he like unto? ” 

She made various signs to intimate that he had a monkey’s face, and 
a gray beard like Yeo’s. So far so good: but now came a series of 
manipulations about her pretty little neck, which set all their fancies at 
fault. 

“ I know,” said Cary, at last, bursting into a great laugh. “ Sir 
Urian had a ruff on, as I live! Trunk-hose too, my fair dame? 
Stop — I’ll make sure. Was his neck like the Senor Commandant’s, 
the Spaniard? ” 

Ayacanora clapped her hands at finding herself understood, and the 
questioning went on. 

“ The ‘ Devil ’ appeared like a monkey, with a gray beard, in a 
ruff ; — humph ! ” 

“Ay! ” said she, in good enough Spanish, “ Mono de Panama; viejo 
diablo de Panama.” 

Yeo threw up his hands with a shriek — 

“ Oh Lord of all mercies! Those were the last words of Mr. John 
Oxenham! Ay — and the Devil is surely none other than the devil 
Don Francisco Xararte! Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! my sweet young 
lady ! my pretty little maid ! and don’t you know me? Don’t you know 
Salvation Yeo, that carried you over the mountains, and used to climb 
for the monkey-cups for you, my dear young lady? And William 
Penberthy too, that used to get you flowers ; and your poor dear father, 


Hw Sfclv fttion 'Yeo found M$ Little iVT&icL 509 

that was just like Mr. Cary there, only he had a black beard, and black 
curls, and swore terribly in his speech, like a Spaniard, my dear young 
lady? ” 

And the honest fellow, falling on his knees, covered Ayacanora’s 
hands with kisses ; while all the crew, fancying him gone suddenly mad, 
crowded aft. 

“ Steady, men, and don’t vex him! ” said Amyas. “ He thinks that 
he has found his little maid at last.” 

“ And so do I, Amyas, as I live,” said Cary. 

“ Steady, steady, my masters all! If this turn out a wrong scent 
after all, his wits will crack. Mr. Yeo, can’t you think of any other 
token? ” 

Yeo stamped impatiently. “ What need then? It’s her, I tell ye, 
and that’s enough! What a beauty she’s grown! Oh dear! where 
were my eyes all this time, to behold her, and not to see her ! ’Tis her 
very mortal self, it is ! And don’t you mind me, my dear, now? Don’t 
you mind Salvation Yeo, that taught you to sing ‘ Heave my mariners 
all, O ! ’ a-sitting on a log by the boat upon the sand, and there was a 
sight of red lilies grew on it in the moss, dear, now, wasn’t there? and 
we made posies of them to put in your hair, now? ” — And the poor old 
man ran on in a supplicating, suggestive tone, as if he could persuade 
the girl into becoming the person whom he sought. 

Ayacanora had watched him, first angry, then amused, then atten- 
tive, and at last with the most intense earnestness. Suddenly she grew 
crimson, and snatching her hands from the old man’s, hid her face in 
them, and stood. 

“ Do you remember anything of all this, my child? ” asked Amyas 
gently. 

She lifted up her eyes suddenly to his, with a look of imploring 
agony, as if beseeching him to spare her. The death of a whole old 
life, the birth of a whole new life, was struggling in that beautiful face, 
choking in that magnificent throat, as she threw back her small head, 
and drew in her breath, and dashed her locks back from her temples, as 
if seeking for fresh air. She shuddered, reeled, then fell weeping on 
the bosom, not of Salvation Yeo, but of Amyas Leigh. 

He stood still a minute or two, bearing that fair burden, ere he could 
recollect himself. Then, — 

“ Ayacanora, you are not yet mistress of yourself, my child. You 
were better to go down, and see after poor Lucy, and we will talk 
about it all to-morrow.” 


510 


Westward Ho ! 

She gathered herself up instantly, and with eyes fixed on the deck 
slid through the group, and disappeared below. 

“Ah!” said Yeo, with a tone of exquisite sadness, “ the young to 
the young! Over land and sea, in the forests and in the galleys, in 
battle and prison, I have sought her ! And now ! ” 

“ My good friend,” said Amyas, “ neither are you master of your- 
self yet. When she comes round again, whom will she love and thank 
but you? ” 

“ You, sir! She owes all to you; and so do I. Let me go below, sir. 
My old wits are shaky. Bless you, sir, and thank you forever and 
ever! ” 

And Yeo grasped Amyas’s hand, and went down to his cabin, from 
which he did not reappear for many hours. 

From that day Ayacanora was a new creature. The thought that 
she was an Englishwoman ; that she, the wild Indian, was really one of 
the great white people whom she had learned to worship, carried in it 
some regenerating change: she regained all her former stateliness, and 
with it a self-restraint, a temperance, a softness which she had never 
shown before. Her dislike to Cary and Jack vanished. Modest and 
distant as ever, she now took delight in learning from them about 
England and English people; and her knowledge of our customs 
gained much from the somewhat fantastic behavior which Amyas 
thought good, for reasons of his own, to assume toward her. He as- 
signed her a handsome cabin to herself, always addressed her as 
Madam, and told Cary, Brimblecombe, and the whole crew, that as she 
was a lady and a Christian, he expected them to behave to her as such. 
So there was as much bowing and scraping on the poop as if it had 
been a prince’s court : and Ayacanora, though sorely puzzled and cha- 
grined at Amyas’s new solemnity, contrived to imitate it pretty well 
(taking for granted that it was the right thing) ; and having tolerable 
masters in the art of manners (for both Amyas and Cary were thor- 
oughly well-bred men) , profited much in all things, except in intimacy 
with Amyas, who had, cunning fellow, hit on this parade of good man- 
ners, as a fresh means of increasing the distance between him and her. 
The crew, of course, though they were a little vexed at losing their pet, 
consoled themselves with the thought that she was a “ real born lady,” 
and Mr. Oxenham’s daughter, too; and there was not a man on board 
who did not prick up his ears for a message if she approached him, or 
one who would not have, I verily believe, jumped overboard to do her a 
pleasure. 


How Salvation Ifeo fauna his Little Maid. 511 

Only Yeo kept sorrowfully apart. He never looked at her, spoke 
to her, met her even, if he could. His dream had vanished. He had 
found her! and after all, she did not care for him? Why should she? 

But it was hard to have hunted a bubble for years, and have it break 
in his hand at last. “ Set not your affections on things on the earth,” 
murmured Yeo to himself, as he pored over his Bible, in the vain hope 
of forgetting his little maid. 

But why did Amyas wish to increase the distance between himself 
and Ayacanora? Many reasons might be given: I deny none of them. 
But the main one, fantastic as it may seem, was simply, that while she 
had discovered herself to be an Englishwoman, he had discovered her 
to be a Spaniard. If her father were seven times John Oxenham 
(and even that the perverse fellow was inclined to doubt), her mother 
was a Spaniard — Pah! one of the accursed race; kinswoman, — per- 
haps, to his brother’s murderers ! His jaundiced eyes could see noth- 
ing but the Spanish element in her; or, indeed, in anything else. As 
Cary said to him once, using a cant phrase of Sidney’s, which he had 
picked up from Frank, all heaven and earth were “ spaniolated ” to 
him. He seemed to recollect nothing but that Heaven had “ made 
Spaniards to be killed, and him to kill them.” If he had not been the 
most sensible of John Bulls, he would certainly have forestalled the 
monomania of that young Frenchman of rank, who, some eighty years 
after him, so maddened his brain by reading of the Spanish cruelties, 
that he threw up all his prospects, and turned captain of Filibusters in 
the West Indies, for the express purpose of ridding them of their 
tyrants; and when a Spanish ship was taken, used to relinquish the 
whole booty to his crew, and reserve for himself only the pleasure of 
witnessing his victims’ dying agonies. 

But what had become of that bird-like song of Ayacanora’s, which 
had astonished them on the banks of the Meta, and cheered them many 
a time in their anxious voyage down the Magdalena? From the mo- 
ment that she found out her English parentage, it stopped. She re- 
fused utterly to sing anything but the songs and psalms which she 
picked up from the English. Whether it was that she despised it as 
a relic of her barbarism, or whether it was too maddening for one 
whose heart grew heavier and humbler day by day, the nightingale 
notes were heard no more. 

So homeward they ran, before a favoring southwest breeze: but long 
ere they were within sight of land, Lucy Passmore was gone to her rest 
beneath the Atlantic waves. 


CHAPTER 3QCVIII. 

How Anyas came home K»e third time* 

‘‘It fell about the Martinmas, 

When nights were lang and mirk, 

That wife’s twa sons cam hame again, 

And their hats were o’ the birk. 

“It did na graw by bush or brae, 

Nor yet in ony shough ; 

But by the gates o ’ paradise 
That birk grew fair eneugh . 9 1 

The Wife of Usher’s Well. 

It is the evening of the 15th of February, 1587, and Mrs. Leigh 
(for we must return now to old scenes and old faces) is pacing slowly 
up and down the terrace-walk at Burrough, looking out over the wind- 
ing river, and the hazy sand-hills, and the wide western sea, as she has 
done every evening, be it fair weather or foul, for three weary years. 
Three years and more are past and gone, and yet no news of Frank 
and Amyas, and the gallant ship and all the gallant souls therein ; and 
loving eyes in Bideford and Appledore, Clovelly and Ilfracombe, have 
grown hollow with watching and with weeping for those who have 
sailed away into the West, as John Oxenham sailed before them, and 
have vanished like a dream, as he did, into the infinite unknown. 
Three weary years, and yet no word. Once there was a flush of hope, 
and good Sir Richard (without Mrs. Leigh’s knowledge) had sent a 
horseman posting across to Plymouth, when the news arrived that 
Drake, Frobisher, and Carlisle had returned with their squadron from 
the Spanish Main. Alas ! he brought back great news, glorious news ; 
news of the sacking of Carthagena, San Domingo, Saint Augustine; 
of the relief of Raleigh’s Virginian Colony: but no news of the Rose , 
and of those who had sailed in her. And Mrs. Leigh bowed her head, 
and worshipped, and said, “ The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken 
away ; blessed be the name of the Lord ! ” 

Her hair was now grown gray ; her cheeks were wan ; her step was 
feeble. She seldom went from home, save to the church, and to the 


513 


How Anyas came “home 

neighboring cottages. She never mentioned her sons’ names; never 
allowed a word to pass her lips which might betoken that she thought 
of them; but every day, when the tide was high, a red flag on the sand- 
hills showed that there was water over the bar, she paced the terrace- 
walk, and devoured with greedy eyes the sea beyond, in search of the 
sail which never came. The stately ships went in and out as of yore; 
and white sails hung off the bar for many an hour, day after day, 
month after month, year after year: but an instinct within told her that 
none of them were the sails she sought. She knew that ship, every 
line of her, the cut of every cloth; she could have picked it out miles 
away, among a whole fleet, but it never came, and Mrs. Leigh bowed 
her head and worshipped, and went to and fro among the poor, who 
looked on her as an awful being, and one whom God had brought very 
near to Himself, in that mysterious heaven of sorrow which they too 
knew full well. And lone women and bed-ridden men looked in her 
steadfast eyes, and loved them, and drank in strength from them; for 
they knew (though she never spoke of her own grief) that she had 
gone down into the fiercest depths of the fiery furnace, and was walk- 
ing there unhurt by the side of One whose form was as of the Son of 
God. And all the while she was blaming herself for her “ earthly ” 
longings, and confessing nightly to Heaven that weakness which she 
could not shake off, which drew her feet at each high tide to the terrace- 
walk beneath the row of wind-clipped trees. 

But this evening Northam is in a stir. The pebble ridge is thunder- 
ing far below, as it thundered years ago: but Northam is noisy enough 
without the rolling of the surge. The tower is rocking with the peal - 
ing bells: the people are all in the street shouting and singing round 
bonfires. They are burning the Pope in effigy, drinking to the 
Queen’s health, and “ So perish all her enemies! ” The hills are red 
with bonfires in every village; and far away, the bells of Bideford are 
answering the bells of Northam, as they answered them seven years 
ago, when Amyas returned from sailing round the world. For this 
day has come the news that Mary Queen of Scots is beheaded in Foth- 
eririgay; and all England, like a dreamer who shakes off some hideous 
nightmare, has leaped up in one tremendous shout of jubilation, as the 
terror and the danger of seventeen anxious years is lifted from its 
heart forever. 

Yes, she is gone, to answer at a higher tribunal than that of the 
Estates of England, for all the noble English blood which has been 
poured out for her; for all the. noble English hearts whom she has 


514 


Westward Ho ! 

tempted into treachery, rebellion, and murder. Elizabeth’s own words 
have been fulfilled at last, after years of long-suffering; — 

“The daughter of debate, 

That discord aye doth sow, 

Hath reap ’d no gain where former rule 
Hath taught still peace to grow. ’ 5 

And now she can do evil no more. Murder and adultery, the heart 
which knew no forgiveness, the tongue which could not speak truth 
even for its own interest, have past and are perhaps atoned for; and 
her fair face hangs a pitiful dream in the memory even of those who 
knew that either she, or England, must perish. 

“Nothing is left of her, 

Now, but pure womanly/ ’ 

And Mrs. Leigh, Protestant as she is, breathes a prayer, that the 
Lord may have mercy on that soul, as “ clear as diamond, and as hard,” 
as she said of herself. That last scene, too, before the fatal block — it 
could not be altogether acting. Mrs. Leigh had learned many a price- 
less lesson in the last seven years ; might not Mary Stuart have learned 
something in seventeen? And Mrs. Leigh had been a courtier, and 
knew, as far as a chaste Englishwoman could know (which even in 
those coarser days was not very much) , of that godless style of French 
court profligacy in which poor Mary had had her youthful training, 
amid the Medicis, and the Guises, and Cardinal Lorraine; and she 
shuddered, and sighed to herself — “ To whom little is given, of them 
shall little be required ! ” But still the bells pealed on and would not 
cease. 

What was that which answered them from afar out of the fast dark- 
ening twilight? A flash and then the thunder of a gun at sea. 

Mrs. Leigh stopped. The flash was right outside the bar. A ship 
in distress it could not be. The wind was light and westerly. It was 
a high spring-tide, as evening floods are always there. What could it 
be? Another flash, another gun. The noisy folks of Northam were 
hushed at once, and all hurried into the churchyard which looks down 
on the broad flats and the river. 

There was a gallant ship outside the bar. She was running in, too, 
with all sails set. A large ship; nearly a thousand tons she might be: 
but not of English rig. What was the meaning of it? A Spanish 
cruiser about to make reprisals for Drake’s raid along the Cadiz shore? 
Not that, surely. The Don had no fancy for such unscientific and 









































































































































































































































































































515 


How Anyas came 'borne 

dare-devil warfare. If he came, he would come with admiral, rear- 
admiral, and vice-admiral, transports, and avisos, according to the 
best-approved methods, articles, and science of war. What could 
she be? 

Easily, on the flowing tide, and fair western wind, she has slipped up 
the channel between the two lines of sand-hill. She is almost off 
Appledore now. She is no enemy; and if she be a foreigner, she is a 
daring one, for she has never veiled her topsails, — and that, all know, 
every foreign ship must do within sight of an English port, or stand 
the chance of war; as the Spanish admiral found, who many a year 
since was sent in time of peace to fetch home from Flanders Anne of 
Austria, Philip the Second’s last wife. 

For in his pride he sailed into Plymouth Sound without veiling top- 
sails, or lowering the flag of Spain. Whereon, like lion from his den, 
out rushed Johns Hawkins, the port admiral, in his famous Jesus of 
Lubec (afterward lost in the San Juan d’Ulloa fight), and without 
argument or parley, sent a shot between the admiral’s masts ; which not 
producing the desired effect, alongside ran bold Captain John, and 
with his next shot, so says his son, an eye-witness, “ lackt the admiral 
through and through;” whereon down came the offending flag; and 
due apologies were made : but not accepted for a long time by the stout 
guardian of Her Majesty’s honor. And if John Hawkins did as 
much for a Spanish fleet in time of peace, there is more than one old 
sea-dog in Appledore who will do as much for a single ship in time of 
war, if he can find even an iron pot to bum powder withal. 

The strange sail passed out of sight behind the hill of Appledore; 
and then there rose into the quiet evening air a cheer, as from a hun- 
dred throats. Mrs. Leigh stood still and listened. Another gun 
thundered among the hills ; and then another cheer. 

It might have been twenty minutes before the vessel hove in sight 
again round the dark rocks of the Hubbastone, as she turned up the 
Bideford river. Mrs. Leigh had stood that whole time perfectly mo- 
tionless, a pale and scarcely breathing statue, her eyes fixed upon the 
Viking’s rock. 

Round the Hubbastone she came at last. There was music on 
board, drums and fifes, shawms and trumpets, which wakened ringing 
echoes from every knoll of wood and slab of slate. And as she opened 
full on Burrough House, another cheer burst from her crew, and rolled 
up to the hills from off the silver waters far below, full a mile away. 

Mrs. Leigh walked quickly toward the house, and called her maid, — 


516 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Grace, bring me my hood. Master Amyas is come home! ” 

“ No, surely? O joyful sound! Praised and blessed be the Lord, 
then; praised and blessed be the Lord! But, Madam, however did 
you know that? ” 

“ I heard his voice on the river: but I did not hear Mr. Frank’s with 
him, Grace! ” 

“ Oh, be sure, Madam, where the one is the other is. They’d never 
part company. Both come home or neither, I’ll warrant. Here’s 
your hood, Madam.” 

And Mrs. Leigh, with Grace behind her, started with rapid steps 
toward Bideford. 

Was it true? Was it a dream? Had the divine instinct of the 
mother enabled her to recognize her child’s voice among all the rest, 
and at that enormous distance : or was her brain turning with the long 
effort of her supernatural calm? 

Grace asked herself, in her own way, that same question many a 
time between Burrough and Bideford. When they arrived on the 
quay the question answered itself. 

As they came down Bridgeland Street (where afterward the to- 
bacco warehouses for the Virginia trade used to stand, but which then 
was but a row of rope-walks and sailmakers’ shops) they could see the 
strange ship already at anchor in the river. They had just reached 
the lower end of the street, w r hen round the corner swept a great mob, 
sailors, women, ’prentices, hurrahing, questioning, weeping, laughing: 
Mrs. Leigh stopped; and behold, they stopped also. 

“ Here she is! ” shouted some one; “ here’s his mother! ” 

“ His mother? Not their mother! ” said Mrs. Leigh to herself, and 
turned very pale ; but that heart was long past breaking. 

The next moment the giant head and shoulders of Amyas, far above 
the crowd, swept round the comer. 

“ Make a way ! Make room for Madam Leigh ! ” — And Amyas 
fell on his knees at her feet. 

She threw her arms round his neck, and bent her fair head over his, 
while sailors, ’prentices, and coarse harbor-women were hushed into 
holy silence, and made a ring round the mother and the son. 

Mrs. Leigh asked no question. She saw that Amyas was alone. 

At last he whispered, “ I would have died to save him, mother, if I 
could.” 

“ You need not tell me that, Amyas Leigh, my son.” 

Another silence. 


517 


How Anyas came home 

“ How did he die? ” whispered Mrs. Leigh. 

“ He is a martyr. He died in the ” 

Amyas could say no more. 

“ The Inquisition? ” 

“ Yes ” 

A strong shudder passed through Mrs. Leigh’s frame, and then she 
lifted up her head. 

“ Come home, Amyas. I little expected such an honor— such an 
honor — ha! ha! and such a fair young martyr, too; a very St. Stephen! 
God, have mercy on me; and let me not go mad before these folk, when 
I ought to be thanking Thee for Thy great mercies! Amyas, who is 
that? ” 

And she pointed to Ayacanora, who stood close behind Amyas, 
watching with keen eyes the whole. 

“ She is a poor wild Indian girl — my daughter, I call her. I will 
tell you her story hereafter.” 

“ Your daughter? My granddaughter, then. Come hither, maiden, 
and be my granddaughter.” 

Ayacanora came obedient; and knelt down, because she had seen 
Amyas kneel. 

“ God forbid, child! kneel not to me. Come home, and let me know 
whether I am sane or mazed, alive or dead.” 

And drawing her hood over her face, she turned to go back, holding 
Amyas tight by one hand, and Ayacanora by the other. 

The crowd let them depart some twenty yards in respectful silence, 
and then burst into a cheer which made the old town ring. 

Mrs. Leigh stopped suddenly. 

“ I had forgotten, Amyas. You must not let me stand in the way 
of your duty. Where are your men? ” 

“ Kissed to death by this time; all of them, that is, who are left.” 

“ Left?” 

“We went out a hundred, mother, and we came home forty-four — 
if we are at home. Is it a dream, mother? Is this you? and this old 
Bridgeland Street again? As I live, there stands Evans the smith, at 
his door, tankard in hand, as he did when I was a boy! ” 

The brawny smith came across the street to them ; but stopped when 
he saw Amyas, but no Frank. 

“ Better one than neither, Madam!” said he, trying a rough com- 
fort. Amyas shook his hand as he passed him: but Mrs. Leigh neither 
heard nor saw him, nor any one. 


518 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Mother,” said Amyas, when they were now past the causeway, 
“ we are rich for life.” 

“ Yes; a martyr’s death was the fittest for him.” 

“ I have brought home treasure untold.” 

“ What, my boy? ” 

“ Treasure untold. Cary has promised to see to it to-night.” 

“ Very well. I would that he had slept at our house. He was a 
kindly lad, and loved Frank. When did he? ” 

“Three years ago, and more. Within two months of our sail- 
ing.” 

“Ah ! Yes, he told me so.” 

“ Told you so? ” 

“ Yes; the dear lad has often come to see me in my sleep: but you 
never came. I guessed how it was — as it should be.” 

“ But I loved you none the less, mother! ” 

“ I know that too: but you were busy with the men, you know, 
sweet ; so your spirit could not come roving home like his, which was 
free. Yes- — all as it should be. My maid, and do you not find it cold 
here in England, after those hot regions? ” 

“ Ayacanora’s heart is warm; she does not think about cold.” 

“ Warm! perhaps you will warm my heart for me, then.” 

“ Would God I could do it, mother! ” said Amyas, half reproach- 
fully. 

Mrs. Leigh looked up in his face, and burst into a violent flood of 
tears. 

“ Sinful! sinful that I am! ” 

“ Blessed creature ! ” cried Amyas, “ if you speak so I shall go mad. 
Mother, mother, I have been dreading this meeting for months. It 
has been a nightmare hanging over me like a horrible black thunder- 
cloud ; a great cliff miles high, with its top hid in the clouds, which I 
had to climb, and dare not. I have longed to leap overboard, and flee 
from it like a coward into the depths of the sea. — The thought that you 
might ask me whether I was not my brother’s keeper — that you might 
require his blood at my hands — and now, now ! when it comes ! to find 
you all love, and trust, and patience — Mother, mother, it’s more than I 
can bear ! ” and he wept violently. 

Mrs. Leigh knew enough of Amyas to know that any burst of this 
kind, from his quiet nature, betokened some very fearful struggle; and 
the loving creature forgot everything instantly in the one desire to 
soothe him. 


519 


Ftow Am^as came Home 

And soothe him she did; and home the two went, arm in arm to- 
gether, while Ayacanora held fast, like a child, by the skirt of Mrs. 
Leigh’s cloak. The self-help and daring of the forest nymph had 
given place to the trembling modesty of the young girl, suddenly cast 
on shore in a new world, among strange faces, strange hopes, and 
strange fears also. 

“ Will your mother love me?” whispered she to Amyas, as she 
went in. 

“ Yes; but you must do what she tells you.” Ayacanora pouted. 

“ She will laugh at me, because I am wild.” 

“ She never laughs at any one.” 

“ Humph! ” said Ayacanora. “ Well, I shall not be afraid of her. 
I thought she would have been tall like you ; but she is not even as big 
as me.” 

This hardly sounded hopeful for the prospect of Ayacanora’s obedi- 
ence ; but ere twenty-four hours had passed Mrs. Leigh had won her 
over utterly; and she explained her own speech by saying that she 
thought so great a man ought to have a great mother. She had ex- 
pected, poor thing, in her simplicity, some awful princess with a frown 
like Juno’s own, and found instead a healing angel. 

Her story was soon told to Mrs. Leigh, who of course, woman-like, 
would not allow a doubt as to her identity. And the sweet mother 
never imprinted a prouder or fonder kiss upon her son’s forehead than 
that with which she repaid his simple declaration that he had kept un- 
spotted, like a gentleman and a Christian, the soul which God had put 
into his charge. 

“ Then you have forgiven me, mother? ” 

“ Years ago I said in this same room, what should I render to the 
Lord for having given me two such sons? And in this room I say it 
once again. Tell me all about my other son, that I may honor him as 
I honor you.” 

And then, with the iron nerve which good women have, she made 
him give her every detail of Lucy Passmore’s story, and of all which 
had happened from the day of their sailing to that luckless night at 
Guavra. And when it was done, she led Ayacanora out, and began 
busying herself about the girl’s comforts, as calmly as if Frank and 
Amyas had been sleeping in their cribs in the next room. 

But she had hardly gone up-stairs, when a loud knock at the door 
was followed by its opening hastily; and into the hall burst, regardless 
of etiquette, the tall and stately figure of Sir Richard Grenvile. 


520 


Westward Ho ! 

Amyas dropped on his knees instinctively. The stern warrior was 
quite unmanned; and as he bent over his godson, a tear dropped from 
that iron cheek, upon the iron cheek of Amyas Leigh. 

“ My lad! my glorious lad! and where have you been? Get up, and 
tell me all. The sailors told me a little, but I must hear every word. 
I knew you would do something grand. I told your mother you were 
too good a workman for God to throw away. Now let me have the 
whole story. Why, I am out of breath! To tell truth, I ran three 
parts of the way hither.” 

And down the two sat, and Amyas talked long into the night; while 
Sir Richard, his usual stateliness recovered, smiled stern approval at 
each deed of daring; and when all was ended, answered with something 
like a sigh — 

“ Would God that I had been with you every step! Would God, 
at least, that I could show as good a three-years’ log-book, Amyas, my 
lad!” 

“You can show a better one, I doubt not.” 

“ Humph ! With the exception of one paltry Spanish prize, I don’t 
know that the Queen is the better, or her enemies the worse, for me, 
since we parted last in Dublin city.” 

“ You are too modest, sir.” 

“Would that I were; but I got on in Ireland, I found, no better 
than my neighbors ; and so came home again, to find that while I had 
been wasting my time in that land of misrule, Raleigh had done a deed 
to which I can see no end. For, lad, he has found (or rather his two 
captains, Amadas and Barlow, have found for him) between Florida 
and Newfoundland, a country, the like of which, I believe, there is not 
on the earth for climate and fertility. Whether there be gold there, I 
know not, and it matters little; for there is all else on earth that man 
can want; furs, timber, rivers, game, sugar-canes, corn, fruit, and 
every commodity which France, Spain, or Italy can yield, wild in 
abundance; the savages civil enough for savages, and, in a word, all 
which goes to the making of as noble a jewel as her Majesty’s crown 
can wear. The people call it Wingandacoa; but we, after her Maj- 
esty, Virginia.” 

“ You have been there, then? ” 

“ The year before last, lad; and left there Ralf Lane, Amadas, and 
some twenty gentlemen, and ninety men, and, moreover, some money 
of my own, and some of old Will Salterne’s, which neither of us will 
ever see again. For the colony, I know not how, quarreled with the 


521 


Mow Anyas c&mc home 

Indians (I fear I too was oversharp with some of them for stealing — 
if I was, God forgive me!), and could not, forsooth, keep themselves 
alive for twelve months; so that Drake, coming back from his last 
West Indian voyage, after giving them all the help he could, had to 
bring the whole party home. And if you will believe it, the faint- 
hearted fellows had not been gone a fortnight, before I was back again 
with three ships and all that they could want. And never was I more 
wroth in my life, when all I found was the ruins of their huts, which 
(so rich is the groAvth there) were already full of great melons, and 
wild deer feeding thereon — a pretty sight enough, but not what I 
wanted just then. So back I came ; and being in no overgood temper, 
vented my humors on the Portugals at the Azores, and had hard 
fights and small booty. So there the matter stands, but not for long; 
for shame it were if such a paradise, once found by Britons, should fall 
into the hands of any but her Majesty; and we will try again this 
spring, if men and money can be found. Eh, lad? ” 

“ But the prize? ” 

“Ah! that was no small make-weight to our disasters, after all. I 
sighted her for six days’ sail from the American coast: but ere we 
could lay her aboard it fell dead calm. Never a boat had I on board — 
they were all lost in a gale of wind — and the other ships were be- 
calmed two leagues astern of me. There was no use lying there and 
pounding her till she sunk; so I called the carpenter, got up all the 
old chests, and with them and some spars we floated ourselves along- 
side, and only just in time. For the last of us had hardly scrambled 
up into the chains, when our crazy Noah’s ark went all aboard, and 
sank at the side, so that if we had been minded to run away, Amyas, 
we could not ; whereon, judging valor to be the better part of discretion 
(as I usually do) , we fell to with our swords and had her in five min- 
utes, and fifty thousand pounds’ worth in her, which set up my purse 
again, and Raleigh’s too, though I fear it has run out again since as 
fast as it ran in.” 

And so ended Sir Richard’s story. 

Amyas went the next day to Salterne, and told his tale. The old 
man had heard the outlines of it already: but he calmly bade him sit 
down, and listened to all, his chin upon his hand, his elbows on his 
knees. His cheek never blanched, his lips never quivered throughout. 
Only when Amyas came to Rose’s marriage, he heaved a long breath, 
as if a weight was taken off his heart. 

“ Say that again, sir! ” 


522 


Westward Ho S 

Amyas said it again, and then went on; faltering, he hinted at the 
manner of her death. 

“ Go on, sir! Why are you afraid? There is nothing to be ashamed 
of there, is there? " 

Amyas told the whole with downcast eyes, and then stole a look 
at his hearer's face. There was no sign of emotion: only somewhat 
of a proud smile curled the corners of that iron mouth. 

“And her husband? " asked he, after a pause. 

“ I am ashamed to have to tell you, sir, that the man still lives." 

“ Still lives, sir? ” 

“ Too true, as far as I know. That it was not my fault, my story 
bears me witness." 

“ Sir, I never doubted your will to kill him. Still lives, you say? 
Well, so do rats and adders. And now, I suppose, Captain Leigh, 
your worship is minded to recruit yourself on shore a while with the 
fair lass whom you have brought home (as I hear) before having 
another dash at the devil and his kin ! " 

“ Do not mention that young lady’s name with mine, sir ; she is 
no more to me than she is to you; for she has Spanish blood in her 
veins." 

Salteme smiled grimly. 

“ But I am minded at least to do one thing, Mr. Salterne, and that 
is, to kill Spaniards, in fair fight, by land and sea, wheresoever I shall 
meet them. And, therefore, I stay not long here, whithersoever I 
may be bound next." 

“ Well, sir, when you start, come to me for a ship, and the best I 
have is at your service; and, if she do not suit, command her to be 
fitted as you like best; and I, William Salterne, will pay for all which 
you shall command to be done." 

“ My good sir, I have accounts to square with you after a very dif- 
ferent fashion. As part-adventurer in the Rose , I have to deliver to 
you your share of the treasure which I have brought home." 

“ My share, sir? If I understood you, my ship was lost off the 
coast of Carraccas three years agone, and this treasure was all won 
since? " 

“ True; but you, as an adventurer in the expedition, have a just 
claim for your share, and will receive it." 

“ Captain Leigh, you are, I see, as your father was before you, a 
just and upright Christian man: but, sir, this money is none of mine, 
for it was won in no ship of mine. — Hear me, sir! And if it had been, 


523 


How Anyas cametovne 

and that ship ” — (he could not speak her name) — “ lay safe and sound 
now by Bideford quay, do you think, sir, that William Salterne is the 
man to make money out of his daughter’s sin and sorrow, and to handle 
the price of blood? No, sir! You went like a gentleman to seek her, 
and like a gentleman, as all the world knows, you have done your best, 
and I thank you: but our account ends there. The treasure is yours, 
sir ; I have enough, and more than enough, and none, God help me, to 
leave it to, but greedy and needy kin, who will be rather the worse than 
the better for it. And if I have a claim in law for aught, which I 
know not, neither shall ever ask — why, if you are not too proud, accept 
that claim as a plain burgher’s thank-offering to you, sir, for a great 
and a noble love which you and your brother have shown to one who, 
though I say it, to my shame, was not worthy thereof.” 

“ She was worthy of that, and more, sir. For if she sinned like a 
woman, she died like a saint.” 

“ Yes, sir! ” answered the old man with a proud smile; “ she had 
the right English blood in her, I doubt not ; and showed it at the last. 
But now, sir, no more of this. When you need a ship, mine is at your 
service; till then, sir, farewell, and God be with you.” 

And the old man rose, and with an unmoved countenance, bowed 
Amyas to the door. Amyas went back and told Cary, bidding him 
take half of Salterne’ s gift: but Cary swore a great oath that he would 
have none of it. 

“ Heir of Clovelly, Amyas, and want to rob you? I who have lost 
nothing, — you who have lost a brother! God forbid that I should ever 
touch a farthing beyond my original share! ” 

That evening a messenger from Bideford came running breathless 
up to Burrough Court. The authorities wanted Amyas’s immediate 
attendance, for he was one of the last, it seemed, who had seen Mr. 
Salterne alive. 

Salterne had gone over, as soon as Amyas departed, to an old 
acquaintance; signed and sealed his will in their presence with a firm 
and cheerful countenance, refusing all condolence; and then gone 
home, and locked himself into Rose’s room. Supper-time came, and 
he did not appear. The apprentices could not make him answer, and 
at last called in the neighbors, and forced the door. Salterne was 
kneeling by his daughter’s bed; his head was upon the coverlet; his 
Prayer-book was open before him at the Burial Service; his hands were 
clasped in supplication: but he was dead and cold. 

His will lay by him. He had left all his property among his poor 


524 


Westward Ho ! 

relations, saving and excepting all money, etc., due to him as owner 
and part-adventurer of the ship Rose , and his new bark of three hun- 
dred tons burden, now lying East-the-water; all which was bequeathed 
to Captain Amyas Leigh, on condition that he should rechristen that 
bark the Vengeance , fit her out with part of the treasure, and with 
her sail once more against the Spaniard, before three years were 
past. 

And this was the end of William Salterne, merchant. 




CHAPTER XKIX. 

How the Viginizui Fleet was stopped by 
the Queen’s Command, y 

‘ * The daughter of debate, 

That discord still doth sow, 

Shall reap no gain where former rule 
Hath taught still peace to grow. 

No foreign banish’d wight 
Shall anker in this port ; 

Our realm it brooks no stranger’s force; 

Let them elsewhere resort.” 

Qu. Elizabeth. 1569. 

And now Amyas is settled quietly at home again; and for the next 
twelve months little passes worthy of record in these pages. Yeo has 
installed himself as major domo, with no very definite functions, save 
those of walking about everywhere at Amyas’s heels like a lank gray 
wolf-hound, and spending his evenings at the fireside, as a true old 
sailor does, with his Bible on his knee, and his hands busy in manu- 
facturing numberless nick-nacks, useful or useless, for every member 
of the family, and above all for Ayacanora, whom he insults every 
week by humbly offering some toy only fit for a child; at which she 
pouts, and is reproved by Mrs. Leigh, and then takes the gift, and 
puts it away never to look at it again. For her whole soul is set upon 
being an English maid; and she runs about all day long after Mrs. 
Leigh, insisting upon learning the mysteries of the kitchen and the 
still-room, and, above all, the art of making clothes for herself, and at 
last for everybody in Northam. For first, she will be a good house- 
wife, like Mrs. Leigh; and next a new idea has dawned on her; that 
of helping others. To the boundless hospitality of the savage she has 
been of course accustomed: but to give to those who can give nothing 
in return, is a new thought. She sees Mrs. Leigh spending every spare 
hour in working for the poor, and visiting them in their cottages. 
She sees Amyas, after public thanks in church for his safe return, 


526 


Westward Ho ! 

giving away money, food, what not, in Northam, Appledore, and 
Bideford; buying cottages and making them almshouses for worn-out 
mariners ; and she is told that this is his thank-offering to God. She 
is puzzled; her notion of a thank-offering was rather that of the In- 
dians, and indeed of the Spaniards, — sacrifices of human victims, and 
the bedizenment of the Great Spirit’s sanctuary with their skulls and 
bones. Not that Amy as, as a plain old-fashioned Churchman, was 
unmindful of the good old instinctive rule, that something should be 
given to the Church itself; for the vicar of Northam was soon re- 
splendent with a new surplice, and what was more, the altar with a 
splendid flagon and salver of plate (lost, I suppose, in the civil wars) 
which had been taken in the great galleon. Ayacanora could under- 
stand that: but the almsgiving she could not, till Mrs. Leigh told her, 
in her simple way, that whosoever gave to the poor, gave to the 
Great Spirit; for the Great Spirit was in them, and in Ayacanora 
too, if she would be quiet and listen to him, instead of pouting, and 
stamping, and doing nothing but what she liked. And the poor child 
took in that new thought like a child, and worked her fingers to the 
bone for all the old dames in Northam, and went about with Mrs. 
Leigh, lovely and beloved, and looked now and then out from under 
her long black eyelashes to see if she was winning a smile from Amy as. 
And on the day on which she won one, she was good all day; and on 
the day on which she did not, she was thoroughly naughty, and would 
have worn out the patience of any soul less chastened than Mrs. 
Leigh’s. But as for the pomp and glory of her dress, there was no 
keeping it within bounds; and she swept into church each Sunday 
bedizened in Spanish finery, with such a blaze and rustle that the good 
vicar had to remonstrate humbly with Mrs. Leigh on the disturbance 
which she caused to the eyes and thoughts of all his congregation. 
To which Ayacanora answered that she was not thinking about them, 
and they need not think about her; and that if the Piache (in plain 
English, the conjuror) , as she supposed, wanted a present, he might 
have all her Mexican feather-dresses; she would not wear them — they 
were wild Indian things, and she was an English maid — but they 
would just do for a Piache: and so darted up-stairs, brought them 
down, and insisted so stoutly on arraying the vicar therein, that the 
good man beat a swift retreat. But he carried off with him, neverthe- 
less, one of the handsomest mantles, which instead of selling it, he con- 
verted cleverly enough into an altar-cloth; and for several years 
afterward, the communion at Northam was celebrated upon a blaze of 


The Queen’s Command 527 

emerald, azure and crimson, which had once adorned the sinful body 
of some Aztec prince. 

So Ayacanora flaunted on; while Amyas watched her, half amused, 
half in simple pride of her beauty; and looked around at all gazers, as 
much as to say, “ See what a fine bird I have brought home! ” 

Another great trouble which she gave Mrs. Leigh was her conduct 
to the ladies of the neighborhood. They came, of course, one and all, 
not only to congratulate Mrs. Leigh, but to get a peep at the fair 
savage; but the fair savage snubbed them all round, from the vicar’s 
wife to Lady Grenvile herself, so effectually, that few attempted a 
second visit. 

Mrs. Leigh remonstrated, and was answered by floods of tears. 
“ They only come to stare at a poor wild Indian girl, and she would 
not be made a show of. She was like a queen once, and every one 
obeyed her; but here every one looked down upon her.” But when 
Mrs. Leigh asked her whether she would sooner go back to the 
forests, the poor girl clung to her like a baby, and entreated not to 
be sent away. “ She would sooner be a slave in the kitchen here, than 
go back to the bad people.” 

And so on, month after month of foolish storm and foolish sun- 
shine ; but she was under the shadow of one in whom was neither storm 
nor sunshine, but a perpetual genial calm of soft gray weather, which 
tempered down to its own peacefulness all who entered its charmed in- 
fluence; and the outbursts grew more and more rare, and Ayacanora 
more and more rational, though no more happy, day by day. 

And, one by one, small hints came out, which made her identity 
certain, at least in the eyes of Mrs. Leigh and Yeo. After she had 
become familiar with the sight of houses, she gave them to understand 
that she had seen such things before. The red cattle, too, seemed not 
unknown to her; the sheep puzzled her for some time; and, at last, 
she gave Mrs. Leigh to understand that they were too small. 

“Ah, Madam,” quoth Yeo, who caught at every straw, “ it is because 
she has been accustomed to those great camel-sheep (llamas they call 
them) in Peru.” 

But Ayacanora’s delight was a horse. The use of tame animals at 
all was a "daily wonder to her; but that a horse could be ridden was the 
crowning miracle of all; and a horse she would ride, and, after 
plaguing Amyas for one in vain (for he did not want to break her 
pretty neck), she proposed confidentially to Yeo, to steal one; and, 
foiled in that, went to the vicar, and offered to barter all her finery 


528 


Westward Ho I 

for his broken-kneed pony. But the vicar was too honest to drive so 
good a bargain; and the matter ended in Amyas buying her a jennet, 
which she learned in a fortnight to ride like a very Guacho. 

And now awoke another curious slumbering reminiscence. For one 
day, at Lady Grenvile’s invitation, the whole family went over to 
Stow; Mrs. Leigh soberly on a pillion behind the groom, Ayacanora 
cantering round and round upon the moors like a hound let loose, and 
trying to make Amyas ride races with her. But that night, sleeping 
in the same room with Mrs. Leigh, she woke shrieking, and sobbed out 
a long story, how the “ Old ape of Panama,” her especial abomination, 
had come to her bedside, and dragged her forth into the courtyard; and 
how she had mounted a horse, and ridden with an Indian over great 
moors and high mountains, down into a dark wood; and there the 
Indian and the horses vanished, and she found herself suddenly 
changed once more into a little savage child. So strong was the im- 
pression that she could not be persuaded that the thing had not hap- 
pened; if not that night, at least some night or other. So Mrs. Leigh 
at last believed the same; and told the company next morning, in her 
pious way, how the Lord had revealed in a vision to the poor child who 
she was, and how she had been exposed in the forests by her jealous 
stepfather; and neither Sir Richard nor his wife could doubt but that 
hers was the true solution. It was probable that Don Xararte, though 
his home was Panama, had been often at Quito; for Yeo had seen 
him come on board the Lima ship at Guayaquil, one of the nearest 
ports. This would explain her having been found by the Indians 
beyond Cotopaxi, the nearest peak of the Eastern Andes; if, as was 
but too likely, the old man, believing her to be Oxenham’s child, had 
conceived the fearful vengeance of exposing her in the forests. 

Other little facts came to light, one by one. They were all con- 
nected (as was natural in a savage) with some animal, or other natural 
object. Whatever impressions her morals or affections had received, 
had been erased by the long spiritual death of that forest-sojourn; 
and Mrs. Leigh could not elicit from her a trace of feeling about her 
mother, or recollection of any early religious teaching. This link, 
however, was supplied at last; and in this way. 

Sir Richard had brought home an Indian with him from Virginia. 
Of his original name I am not sure; but he was probably the “ Wan- 
chese ” whose name occurs with that of “ Manteo.” 

This man was to be baptized in the church at Bideford, by the name 
of Raleigh; his sponsors being most probably Raleigh himself, who 


529 


The Queen’s Command 

may have been there on Virginian business, and Sir Richard Grenvile. 
All the notabilities of Bideford came, of course, to see the baptism of 
the first “ Red man ” whose foot had ever trodden British soil; and the 
mayor and corporation-men appeared in full robes, with maces and 
tip-staffs, to do honor to that first-fruits of the Gospel in the West. 

Mrs. Leigh went, as a matter of course, and Ayacanora would 
needs go too. She was very anxious to know what they were going to 
do with the “ Carib.” 

“To make him a Christian.” 

“ Why did they not make her one? ” 

Because she was one already. They were sure that she had been 
christened as soon as she was born. But she was not sure ; and pouted 
a good deal at the chance of an “ ugly red Carib ” being better off than 
she was. However, all assembled duly; the stately son of the forest, 
now transformed into a footman of Sir Richard’s, was standing at the 
front; the service was half performed, when a heavy sigh, or rather 
groan, made all eyes turn, and Ayacanora sank fainting upon Mrs. 
Leigh’s bosom. 

She was carried out, and to a neighboring house ; and when she came 
to herself, told a strange story. How as she was standing there, try- 
ing to recollect whether she too had ever been baptized, the church 
seemed to grow larger, the priest’s dress richer; the walls were covered 
with pictures, and above the altar, in jeweled robes, stood a lady, and 
in her arms a babe. Soft music sounded in her ears; the air was full 
(on that she insisted much) of fragrant odor, which filled the church 
like mist; and through it she saw not one, but many Indians, standing 
by the font; and a lady held her by the hand, and she was a little 
girl again. 

And after many questionings, so accurate was her recollection, not 
only of the scene, but of the building, that Yeo pronounced — 

“A christened woman she is, madam, if Popish christening is 
worth calling such; and has seen Indians christened, too, in the 
Cathedral Church at Quito, the inside whereof I know well enough, 
and too well; for I sat there three mortal hours in a San Benito, to 
hear a friar preach his false doctrines, not knowing whether I was to 
be burned or not next day.” 

So Ayacanora went home to Burrough, and Raleigh the Indian 
to Sir Richard’s house. The entry of his baptism still stands, crooked- 
lettered, in the old parchment register of the Bideford baptisms for 
158T-8 — 


530 


Westward Ho I 

“ Raleigh, a Winganditoian: March 26/’ 

His name occurs once more, a year and a month after — 

“ Rawly, a Winganditoian, April, 1589.” 

But it is not this time among the baptisms. The free forest wan- 
derer has pined in vain for his old deer-hunts amid the fragrant cedar 
woods, and lazy paddlings through the still lagoons, where water-lilies 
sleep beneath the shade of great magnolias, wreathed with clustered 
vines; and now he is away to “ happier hunting-grounds,” and all that 
is left of him below sleeps in the narrow town churchyard, blocked in 
with dingy houses, whose tenants will never waste a sigh upon the 
Indian’s grave. There the two entries stand, unto this day; and most 
pathetic they have seemed to me; a sort of emblem and first-fruits of 
the sad fate of that worn-out Red race, to whom civilization came too 
late to save, but not too late to hasten their decay. 

But though Amyas lay idle, England did not. That spring saw 
another and a larger colony sent out by Raleigh to Virginia, under the 
charge of one John White. Raleigh had written more than once, 
entreating Amyas to take the command, which if he had done, perhaps 
the United States had begun to exist twenty years sooner than they 
actually did. But his mother had bound him by a solemn promise 
(and who can wonder at her for asking, or at him for giving it?) to 
wait at home with her twelve months at least. So, instead of himself, 
he sent five hundred pounds, which I suppose are in Virginia (virtually 
at least) until this day; for they never came back again to him. 

But soon came a sharper trial of Amyas’s promise to his mother; 
and one which made him, for the first time in his life, moody, peevish, 
and restless, at the thought that others were fighting Spaniards, while 
he was sitting idle at home. For his whole soul was filling fast with 
sullen malice against Don Guzman. He was losing the “ single eye,” 
and his whole body was no longer full of light. He had entered into 
the darkness in which every man walks who hates his brother; and it 
lay upon him like a black shadow day and night. No company, too, 
could be more fit to darken that shadow than Salvation Yeo’s. The 
old man grew more stern in his fanaticism day by day, and found a 
too willing listener in his master; and Mrs. Leigh was (perhaps for 
the first and last time in her life) seriously angry, when she heard the 
two coolly debating whether they had not committed a grievous sin 
in not killing the Spanish prisoners on board the galleon. 


531 


The Queen’s Commend. 

It must be said, however (as the plain facts set down in this book 
testify), that if such was the temper of Englishmen at that day, the 
Spaniards had done a good deal to provoke it; and were just then at- 
tempting to do still more. 

For now we are approaching the year 1588, “ which an astronomer 
of Ivonigsberg, above a hundred years before, foretold would be an 
admirable year, and the German chronologers presaged would be the 
climacterical year of the world. 5 ’ 

The prophecies may stand for what they are worth; but they were 
at least fulfilled. That year was, indeed, the climacterical year of 
the world; and decided once and for all, the fortunes of the European 
nations, and of the whole continent of America. 

No wonder, then, if (as has happened in each great crisis of the 
human race) some awful instinct that The Day of the Lord was at 
hand, some dim feeling that there was war in heaven, and that the 
fiends of darkness and the angels of light were arrayed against each 
other in some mighty struggle for the possession of the souls of men, 
should have tried to express itself in astrologic dreams, and, as was 
the fashion then, attributed to the “ rulers of the planetary houses 55 
some sympathy with the coming world-tragedy. 

But, for the wise, there needed no conjunction of planets to tell 
them that the day was near at hand, when the long desultory duel be- 
tween Spain and England would end, once and for all, in some great 
death-grapple. The war, as yet, had been confined to the Nether- 
lands, to the West Indies, and the coasts and isles of Africa; to the 
quarters, in fact, where Spain was held either to have no rights, or to 
have forfeited them by tyranny. But Spain itself had been respected 
by England, as England had by Spain; and trade to Spanish ports 
went on as usual, till, in the year 1585, the Spaniard, without warning, 
laid an embargo on all English ships coming to his European shores. 
They were to be seized, it seemed, to form part of an enormous arma- 
ment, which was to attack and crush, once and for all — whom? The 
rebellious Netherlander, said the Spaniards: but the Queen, the min- 
istry, and, when it was just not too late, the people of England, 
thought otherwise. England was the destined victim; so, instead of 
negotiating, in order to avoid fighting, they fought in order to produce 
negotiation. Drake, Frobisher, and Carlisle, as we have seen, swept 
the Spanish Main with fire and sword, stopping the Indian supplies; 
while Walsingham (craftiest, and yet most honest of mortals) pre- 
vented, by some mysterious financial operation, the Venetian mer- 


532 Westward Ho ! 

chants from repairing the Spaniards’ loss by a loan; and no Armada 
came that year. 

In the meanwhile, the Jesuits, here and abroad, made no secret, 
among their own dupes, of the real objects of the Spanish armament. 
The impious heretics, — the Drakes and Raleighs, Grenviles and 
Cavendishes, Hawkinses and Frobishers, who had dared to violate that 
hidden sanctuary of just half the globe, which the pope had bestowed 
on the defender of the true faith, — a shameful ruin, a terrible death 
awaited them, when their sacrilegious barks should sink beneath the 
thunder of Spanish cannon, blessed by the pope, and sanctified with 
holy water and prayer to the service of “ God and his Mother.” Yes, 
they would fall, and England with them. The proud islanders, who 
had dared to rebel against St. Peter, and to cast off the worship of 
“ Mary,” should bow their necks once more under the yoke of the 
Gospel. Their so-called queen, illegitimate, excommunicate, con- 
tumacious, the abettor of free-trade, the defender of the Netherlands, 
the pillar of false doctrine throughout Europe, should be sent in chains 
across the Alps, to sue for her life at the feet of the injured and long- 
suffering father of mankind, while his nominee took her place upon the 
throne which she had long since forfeited by her heresy. 

“ What nobler work? How could the Church of God be more 
gloriously propagated? How could higher merit be obtained by 
faithful Catholics? It must succeed. Spain was invincible in valor, 
inexhaustible in wealth. Heaven itself offered them an opportunity. 
They had nothing now to fear from the Turk, for they had concluded 
a truce with him; nothing from the French, for they were embroiled 
in civil war. The heavens themselves had called upon Spain to fulfil 
her heavenly mission, and restore to the Church’s crown this brightest 
and richest of her lost jewels. The heavens themselves called to a new 
crusade. The saints, whose altars the English had rifled and pro- 
faned, called them to a new crusade. The Virgin Queen of Heaven, 
whose boundless stores of grace the English spurned, called them to a 
new crusade. Justly incensed at her own wrongs and indignities, 
that ‘ ever-gracious Virgin, refuge of sinners, and mother of fair love, 
and holy hope,’ adjured by their knightly honor, all valiant cavaliers 
to do battle in her cause against the impious harlot who assumed her 
titles, received from her idolatrous flatterers the homage due to Mary 
alone, and even (for Father Parsons had asserted it, therefore it must 
be true) had caused her name to be substituted for that of Mary in 
the Litanies of the Church. Let all who wore within a manly heart, 


533 


The C^ueen’s Command. 

without a manly sword, look on the woes of ‘ Mary,’ — her shame, her 
tears, her blushes, her heart pierced through with daily wounds, from 
heretic tongues, and choose between her and Elizabeth! ” 

So said Parsons, Allen, and dozens more; and said more than this, 
too, and much which one had rather not repeat; and were somewhat 
surprised and mortified to find that their hearers, though they granted 
the premises, were too dull or carnal to arrive at the same conclusion. 
The English lay Romanists, almost to a man, had hearts sounder than 
their heads, and, howsoever illogically, could not help holding to the 
strange superstition that, being Englishmen, they were bound to fight 
for England. So the hapless Jesuits, who had been boasting for years 
past that the persecuted faithful throughout the island would rise as 
one man to fight under the blessed banner of the pope and Spain, 
found that the faithful, like Demas of old, forsook them and “ went 
after this present world”; having no objection, of course, to the res- 
toration of Popery; but preferring some more comfortable method 
than an invasion which would inevitably rob them of their ancestral 
lands and would seat needy and greedy Castilians in their old country 
houses, to treat their tenants as they had treated the Indians of 
Hispaniola, and them as they had treated the Caciques. 

But though the hearts of men in that ungodly age were too hard to 
melt at the supposed woes of the Mary who reigned above, and too 
dull to turn rebels and traitors for the sake of those thrones and princi- 
palities in supra-lunar spheres which might be in her gift: yet there 
was a Mary who reigned (or ought to reign) below, whose woes (like 
her gifts) were somewhat more palpable to the carnal sense. A Mary 
who, having every comfort and luxury (including hounds and horses) 
found for her by the English Government, at an expense which would 
be now equal to some twenty thousand a year, could afford to employ 
the whole of her jointure as Queen Dowager of France (probably 
equal to fifty thousand a year more), in plotting the destruction of 
the said government, and the murder of its Queen; a Mary who, if she 
prospered as she ought, might have dukedoms and earldoms, fair lands 
and castles to bestow on her faithful servants; a Mary, finally, who 
contrived by means of an angel face, a serpent tongue, and a heart 
(as she said herself) as hard as a diamond, to make every weak man 
fall in love with her, and, what was worse, fancy more or less that she 
was in love with him. 

Of her the Jesuits were not unmindful; and found it convenient, 
indeed, to forget a while the sorrows of the Queen of Heaven in those 


534 


Westward Ho ! 

of the Queen of Scots. Not that they cared much for those sorrows: 
but they were an excellent stock-in-trade. She was a Romanist; she 
was “ beautiful and unfortunate,” a virtue which, like charity, hides 
the multitude of sins; and therefore, she was a convenient card to play 
in the great game of Rome against the Queen and people of England ; 
and played the poor card was, till it got torn up by over-using. Into 
her merits or demerits I do not enter deeply here. Let her rest in 
peace. 

To all which the people of England made a most practical and ter- 
rible answer. From the highest noble to the lowest peasant, arose one 
simultaneous plebiscitum: “We are tired of these seventeen years of 
chicanery and terror. This woman must die: or the commonweal of 
England perish!” We all know which of the two alternatives was 
chosen. 

All Europe stood aghast: but rather with astonishment at English 
audacity, than with horror at English wickedness. Mary’s own 
French kinsfolk had openly given her up as too bad to be excused, 
much less assisted. Her own son blustered a little to the English am- 
bassador; for the majesty of kings was invaded: whereon Walsingham 
said in open council that “ the Queen should send him a couple of 
hounds, and that would set all right.” Which sage advice (being 
acted on, and some deer sent over and above) was so successful that 
the pious mourner, having run off (Randolph says, like a baby to see 
the deer in their cart) , returned for answer that he would “ thereafter 
depend wholly upon her Majesty, and serve her fortune against all 
the world; and that he only wanted now two of her Majesty’s yeoman 
prickers, and a couple of her grooms of the deer.” The Spaniard was 
not sorry on the whole for the catastrophe; for all that had kept him 
from conquering England long ago was the fear lest, after it was done, 
he might have had to put the crown thereof on Mary’s head, instead of 
his own. But Mary’s death was as convenient a stalking-horse to 
him as to the Pope ; and now the Armada was coming in earnest. 

Elizabeth began negotiating: but fancy not that she does nothing 
more, as the following letter testifies, written about Midsummer, 1587. 

“ F. Drake to Captain Amy as Leigh. This with haste . 

“ Dear Lad, 

“As I said to her most glorious Majesty, I say to you now. 
There are two ways of facing an enemy. The one to stand off, and 
cry, ‘ Try that again and I’ll strike thee ’; the other to strike him first, 


535 


The C^ueen’s Commend 

and then , I * * 4 Try that at all, and I’ll strike thee again/ Of which latter 
counsel her Majesty so far approves, that I go forthwith (tell it not 
in Gath) down the coast, to singe the king of Spain’s beard (so I 
termed it to her Majesty, she laughing), in which if I leave so much 
as a fishing-boat afloat from the Groyne unto Cadiz, it will not be 
with my good will, who intend that if he come this year, he shall come 
by swimming and not by sailing. So if you are still the man I have 
known you, bring a good ship round to Plymouth within the month, 
and away with me for hard blows and hard money, the feel of both of 
which you know pretty well by now. 

“ Thine lovingly, 

44 F. Drake/’ 

Amyas clutched his locks over this letter and smoked more tobacco 
the day he got it than had ever before been consumed at once in Eng- 
land. But he kept true to his promise ; and this was his reply : — 

“Amyas Leigh to the Worshipful Sir F. Drake , Admiral of her 
Majesty's Fleet in Plymouth . 

44 Most honored Sir, 

44 A magician keeps me here, in bilboes for which you have no 
picklock; namely, a mother who forbids. The loss is mine: but 
Antichrist I can fight any year (for he will not die this bout, nor the 
next), while my mother — but I will not trouble your patience more 
than to ask from you to get me news, if you can, from any prisoners 
of one Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto; whether 
he is in Spain or in the Indies ; and what the villain does, and where he 
is to be found. This only I entreat of you, and so remain behind with 
a heavy heart. 

44 Yours to command in all else, and I would to Heaven, in this also, 

44 Amyas Leigh." 

I am sorry to have to say, that after having thus obeyed his mother, 

Master Amyas, as men are too apt to do, revenged himself on her by 

being more and more cross and disagreeable. But his temper 

amended much, when, a few months after, Drake returned triumphant, 
having destroyed a hundred sail in Cadiz alone, taken three great 
galleons with immense wealth on board, burned the small craft all 
along the shore, and offered battle to Santa Cruz at the mouth of the 
Tagus. After which it is unnecessary to say that the Armada was 
put off for yet another year. 


536 


Westward Ho ! 

This news, indeed, gave Amy as little comfort; for he merely ob- 
served, grumbling, that Drake had gone and spoiled everybody else’s 
sport: but what cheered him was news from Drake that Don Guzman 
had been heard of from the captain of one of the galleons; that he was 
high in favor in Spain, and commandant of soldiers on board one of 
the largest of the Marquis’s ships. 

And when Amyas heard that, a terrible joy took possession of 
him. When the Armada came, as come it would, he should meet his 
enemy at last! He could wait now patiently: if — and he shuddered 
at himself, as he found himself in the very act of breathing a prayer 
that Don Guzman might not die before that meeting. 

In the meanwhile, rumor flew thousand-tongued through the length 
and breadth of the land; of vast preparations going on in Spain and 
Italy; of timber felled long before for some such purpose, broug'ht 
down to the sea, and sawn out for shipbuilding; of casting of cannon, 
and drilling of soldiers; of ships in hundreds collecting at Lisbon; of 
a crusade preached by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who had bestowed the 
kingdom of England on the Spaniard, to be enjoyed by him as vassal 
tributary to Rome; of a million of gold to be paid by the Pope, one- 
half down at once, the other half when London was taken ; of Cardinal 
Allen writing and printing busily in the Netherlands, calling on all 
good Englishmen to carry out, by rebelling against Elizabeth, the 
Bull of Sixtus the Fifth, said (I blush to repeat it) to have been 
dictated by the Holy Ghost; of Inquisitors getting ready fetters and 
devil’s engines of all sorts; of princes and noblemen, flocking from 
all quarters, gentlemen selling their private estates to fit out ships; 
how the Prince of Melito, the Marquess of -Burgrave, Vespasian 
Gonzaga, John Medicis, Amadas of Savoy, in short, the illegitimate 
sons of all the southern princes, having no lands of their own, were 
coming to find that necessary of life in this pleasant little wheat- 
garden. Nay, the Duke of Medina Sidonia had already engaged 
Mount-Edgecombe for himself, as the fairest jewel of the south; which 
when good old Sir Richard Edgecombe heard, he observed quietly 
that in 1555 he had the pleasure of receiving at his table at one time 
the admirals of England, Spain, and the Netherlands, and therefore 
had experience in entertaining Dons; and made preparations for the 
visit by filling his cellars with gunpowder, with a view to a house- 
warming and feu-de-joie on the occasion. But as old Fuller says, 
“ The bear was not yet killed, and Medina Sidonia might have catchec) 
a great cold, had he no other clothes to wear than the skin thereof.” 


537 


The Queen’s Command 

So flew rumor, false and true, till poor John Bull’s wits were well- 
nigh turned: but to the very last, after his lazy fashion, he persuaded 
himself that it would all come right somehow; that it was too great 
news to be true ; that if it was true, the expedition was only meant for 
the Netherlands; and, in short, sat quietly over his beef and beer for 
many a day after the French king had sent him fair warning, and 
the Queen, the ministry, and the admirals had been assuring him again 
and again that he, and not the Dutchman, was the destined prey of 
this great flight of ravenous birds. 

At last the Spaniard, in order that there should be no mistake about 
the matter, kindly printed a complete bill of the play, to be seen still 
in Van Meteran, for the comfort of all true Catholics, and confusion 
of all pestilent heretics; which document, of course, the seminary 
priests used to enforce the duty of helping the invaders, and the cer- 
tainty of their success ; and from their hands it soon passed into those 
of the devout ladies, who were not very likely to keep it to themselves ; 
till John Bull himself found his daughters buzzing over it with very 
pale faces (as young ladies well might who had no wish to follow the 
fate of the damsels of Antwerp), and condescending to run his eye 
through it, discovered, what all the rest of Europe had known for 
months past, that he was in a very great scrape. 

Well it was for England then that her Tudor sovereigns had com- 
pelled every man (though they kept up no standing army) to be a 
trained soldier. Well it was that Elizabeth, even in those dangerous 
days of intrigue and rebellion, had trusted her people enough, not only 
to leave them their weapons, but (what we, forsooth, in these more 
“ free ” and “ liberal ” days dare not do) to teach them how to use 
them. Well it was that by careful legislation for the comfort and 
employment of “the masses” (term then, thank God, unknown), 
she had both won their hearts, and kept their bodies in fighting order. 
Well it was that, acting as fully as Napoleon did on “la carriere 
ouverte aux talens,” she had raised to the highest posts in her councils, 
her army, and her navy, men of business, who had not been ashamed 
to buy and sell as merchants and adventurers. W ell for England, in 
a word, that Elizabeth had pursued for thirty years a very different 
course from that which we have been pursuing for the last thirty, with 
one exception, namely the leaving as much as possible to private 
enterprise. 

There we have copied her: would to Heaven that we had in some 
other matters! It is the fashion now to call her a despot: but unless 


538 


Westward Ho ! 

every monarch is to be branded with that epithet whose power is not 
as circumscribed as Queen Victoria’s is now, we ought rather to call 
her the most popular sovereign, obeyed of their own free will by the 
freest subjects which England has ever seen; confess the Armada 
fight to have been as great a moral triumph as it was a political one ; 
and (now that our late boasting is a little silenced by Crimean dis- 
asters) inquire whether we have not something to learn from those old 
Tudor times, as to how to choose officials, how to train a people, and 
how to defend a country. 

To return to the thread of my story. 

January 1587-8 had well-nigh run through, before Sir Richard 
Grenvile made his appearance on the streets of Bideford. He had 
been appointed in November one of the council of war for providing 
for the safety of the nation, and the West Country had seen nothing 
of him since. But one morning, just before Christmas, his stately 
figure darkened the old bay-window at Burrough, and Amvas rushed 
out to meet him, and bring him in, and ask what news from court. 

“All good news, dear lad, and dearer Madam. The Queen shows 
the spirit of a very Boadicea or Semiramis; ay, a very Scythian 
Tomyris, and if she had the Spaniard before her now, would verily, 
for aught I know, feast him as the Scythian queen did Cyrus, with 
4 Satia te sanguine, quod sitisti.’ ” 

“ I trust her most merciful spirit is not so changed already,” said 
Mrs. Leigh, 

“ Well, if she would not do it, I would, and ask pardon afterward, 
as Raleigh did about the rascals at Smerwick, whom Amyas knows of. 
Mrs. Leigh, these are times in which mercy is cruelty. Not England 
alone, but the world, the Bible, the Gospel itself, is at stake; and we 
must do terrible things, lest we suffer more terrible ones.” 

“ God will take care of world and Bible better than any cruelty of 
ours, dear Sir Richard.” 

“ Nay, but, Mrs. Leigh, we must help Him to take care of them! 
If those Smerwick Spaniards had not been ” 

“ The Spaniard would not have been exasperated into invading 
us.” 

“And we should not have had this chance of crushing him once and 
for all: but the quarrel is of older standing, Madam, eh, Amyas? 
Amyas, has Raleigh written to you of late? ” 

44 Not a word, and I wonder why.” 

44 Well; no wonder at that, if you knew how he has been laboring. 


539 


The Queen's Commend 

The wonder is, whence he got the knowledge wherewith to labor; for 
he never saw sea-work to my remembrance.” 

“ Never saw a shot fired by sea, except ours at Smerwick, and that 
brush with the Spaniards in 1579, when he sailed for Virginia with 
Sir Humphrey ; and he was a mere crack then.” 

“ So you consider him as your pupil, eh? But he learned enough in 
the Netherland wars, and in Ireland too, if not of the strength of 
ships, yet still of the weakness of land forces; and would you believe 
it, the man has twisted the whole council round his finger, and made 
them give up the land defenses to the naval ones.” 

“ Quite right he, and wooden walls against stone ones for ever! 
But as for twisting, he would persuade Satan, if he got him alone for 
half an hour.” 

“ I wish he would sail for Spain then, just now, and try the powers 
of his tongue,” said Mrs. Leigh. 

“ But are we to have the honor, really? ” 

“ We are, lad. There were many in the council who were for 
disputing the landing on shore, and said — which I do not deny — that 
the ’prentice boys of London could face the bluest blood in Spain. 
But Raleigh argued (following my Lord Burleigh in that) that we 
differed from the Low Countries, and all other lands, in that we 
had not a castle or town throughout, which would stand a ten days’ 
siege, and that our ramparts, as he well said, were, after all, only a 
body of men. So, he argued, as long as the enemy has power to land 
where he will, prevention, rather than cure, is our only hope; and that 
belongs to the office, not of an army, but of a fleet. So the fleet was 
agreed on, and a fleet we shall have.” 

“ Then here is his health, the health of a true friend to all bold 
mariners, and myself in particular! But where is he now?” 

“ Coming here to-morrow, as I hope — for he left London with me, 
and so down by us into Cornwall, to drill the train-bands, as he is 
bound to do, being Seneschal of the Duchies and Lieutenant-General 
of the county.” 

“ Besides Lord Warden of the Stannaries ! How the man thrives ! ” 
said Mrs. Leigh. 

“ How the man deserves to thrive!” said Amyas; “but what are 
we to do? ” 

“ That is the rub. I would fain stay and fight the Spaniards.” 

“ So would I; and will.” 

“ But he has other plans in his head for us.” 


540 


Westward Ho ! 

“ We can make our own plans without his help.” 

“Heyday, Amyas! How long? When did he ask you to do a 
thing yet and you refuse him? ” 

“ Not often, certainly: but Spaniards I must fight.” 

“ Well, so must I, boy: but I have given a sort of promise to him, 
nevertheless.” 

“ Not for me too, I hope? ” 

“No: he will extract that himself when he comes; you must come 
and sup to-morroAv, and talk it over.” 

“ Be talked over, rather. W T hat chestnut does the cat want us 
monkeys to pull out of the fire for him now, I wonder? ” 

“ Sir Richard Grenvile is hardly accustomed to be called a monkey,” 
said Mrs. Leigh. 

“ I meant no harm; and his worship knows it, none better: but where 
is Raleigh going to send us, with a murrain? ” 

“ To Virginia. The settlers must have help; and, as I trust in God, 
we shall be back again long before this armament can bestir itself.” 

So Raleigh came, saw, and conquered. Mrs. Leigh consented to 
Amyas’s going ( for his twelvemonth would be over ere the fleet could 
start) upon so peaceful and useful an errand; and the next five 
months were spent in continual labor on the part of Amyas and Gren- 
vile, till seven ships were all but ready in Bideford River, the admiral 
whereof was Amyas Leigh. 

But that fleet was not destined ever to see the shores of the New 
World: it had nobler work to do (if Americans will forgive the 
speech) than even settling the LTnited States. 

It was in the long June evenings, in the year 1588; Mrs. Leigh sat 
in the open window, busy at her needle-work ; Ayacanora sat opposite 
to her, on the seat of the bay, trying diligently to read “ The History 
of the Nine Worthies,” and stealing a glance every now and then 
toward the garden, where Amyas stalked up and down as he had 
used to do in happier days gone by. But his brow was contracted 
now, his eyes fixed on the ground, as he plodded backward and for- 
ward, his hands behind his back, and a huge cigar in his mouth, the 
wonder of the little boys of Northam, who peeped in stealthily as they 
passed the iron-work gates, to see the back of the famous fire-breathing 
captain who had sailed round the world and been in the country of 
headless men and flying dragons, and then popped back their heads 
suddenly, as he turned toward them in his walk. And Ayacanora 
looked, and looked, with no less admiration than the urchins at the 


541 


The Queen’s Command 

gate: but she got no more of an answering look from Amy as than 
they did ; for his head was full of calculations of tonnage and stowage, 
of salt pork and ale-barrels, and the packing of tools and seeds; for he 
had promised Raleigh to do his best for the new colony, and he was 
doing it with all his might; so Ayacanora looked back again to her 
book, and heaved a deep sigh. It was answered by one from 
Mrs. Leigh. 

“ We are a melancholy pair, sweet chuck,” said the fair widow. 
“ What is my maid sighing about, there? ” 

“ Because I cannot make out the long words,” said Ayacanora, 
telling a very white fib. 

“ Is that all? Come to me, and I will tell you.” 

Ayacanora moved over to her, and sat down at her feet. 

“ H — e, he, r — o, ro, i — c — a — 1, heroical,” said Mrs. Leigh. 

“ But what does that mean? ” 

“ Grand, good, and brave, like ” 

Mrs. Leigh was about to have said the name of one who was lost to 
her on earth. His fair angelic face hung opposite upon the wall. 
She paused, unable to pronounce his name ; and lifted up her eyes, and 
gazed on the portrait, and breathed a prayer between closed lips, and 
drooped her head again. 

Her pupil caught at the pause, and filled it up for herself — 

“ Like him? ” and she turned her head quickly toward the window. 

“ Yes, like him, too,” said Mrs. Leigh, with a half smile at the 
gesture. “ Now, mind your book. Maidens must not look out of 
the window in school hours.” 

“ Shall I ever be an English girl? ” asked Ayacanora. 

“ You are one now, sweet; your father was an English gentleman.” 

Amyas looked in, and saw the two sitting together. 

“ You seem quite merry there,” said he. 

“ Come in, then, and be merry with us.” 

He entered, and sat down; while Ayacanora fixed her eyes most 
steadfastly on her book. 

“ Well, how goes on the reading? ” said he; and then, without wait- 
ing for an answer — “ We shall be ready to clear out this day week, 
mother, I do believe; that is, if the hatchets are made in time to pack 
them.” 

“ I hope they will be better than the last,” said Mrs. Leigh. “ It 
seems to me a shameful sin to palm off on poor ignorant savages goods 
which we should consider worthless for ourselves.” 


542 Westward Ho ! 

“ Well, it’s not over fair: but still, they are a sight better than they 
ever had before. An old hoop is better than a deer’s bone, as Aya- 
eanora knows, — eh? ” 

“ I don’t know anything about it,” said she, who was always nettled 
at the least allusion to her past wild life. “ I am an English girl now, 
and all that is gone — I forget it.” 

“ Forget it? ” said he, teasing her, for want of something better to 
do. “ Should not you like to sail with us, now, and see the Indians in 
the forests once again? ” 

“ Sail with you? ” and she looked up eagerly. 

“There! I knew it! She would not be four-and-twenty hours 
ashore, but she would be off into the woods again, bow in hand, like 
any runaway nymph, and we should never see her more.” 

“ It is false, bad man! ” and she burst into violent tears, and hid her 
face in Mrs. Leigh’s lap. 

“Amyas, Amyas, why do you tease the poor fatherless thing? ” 

“ I was only jesting, I’m sure,” said Amyas, like a repentant school- 
boy. “ Don’t cry now, don’t cry, my child, see here,” and he began 
fumbling in his pockets; “ see what I bought of a chapman in town 
to-day, for you, my maid, indeed, I did.” 

And out he pulled some smart kerchief or other, which had taken 
his sailor’s fancy. 

“ Look at it now, blue, and crimson, and green, like any parrot! ” 
and he held it out. 

She looked round sharply, snatched it out of his hand, and tore it to 
shreds. 

“ I hate it, and I hate you ! ” and she sprang up and darted out of 
the room. 

“ Oh, boy, boy! ” said Mrs. Leigh, “ will you kill that poor child? 
It matters little for an old heart like mine, which has but one or two 
chords left whole, how soon it be broken altogether: but a young heart 
is one of God’s precious treasures, Amyas, and suffers many a long 
pang in the breaking; and woe to them who despise Christ’s little 
ones ! ” 

“ Break your heart, mother? ” 

“ Never mind my heart, dear son: yet how can you break it more 
surely than by tormenting one whom I love, because she loves you? ” 

“Tut! play, mother, and maids’ tempers. But how can I break 
your heart? What have I done? Have I not given up going again 
to the West Indies for your sake? Have I not given up going to 


543 


The C^ween’s Command 

Virginia, and now again settled to go, after all, just because you com- 
manded? Was it not your will? Have I not obeyed you, mother, 
mother? I will stay at home, now, if you will. I would rather rust 
here on land, I vow I would, than grieve you ” and he threw him- 

self at his mother’s knees. 

“ Have I asked you not to go to Virginia? No, dear boy, though 
every thought of a fresh parting seems to crack some new fibre within 
me, you must go ! It is your calling. Yes ; you were not sent into the 
world to amuse me, but to work. I have had pleasure enough of you, 
my darling, for many a year, and too much, perhaps; till I shrank 
from lending you to the Lord: But He must have you. . . . It is 
enough for the poor old widow to know that her boy is what he is, 
and to forget all her anguish day by day, for joy that a man is born 
into the world. But, Amyas, Amyas, are you so blind as not to see 
that Ayacanora ” 

“ Don’t talk about her, poor child. Talk about yourself.” 

“ How long have I been worth talking about? No, Amyas, you 
must see it: and if you will not see it now, you will see it one day in 
some sad and fearful prodigy; for she is not one to die tamely. She 
loves you, Amyas, as a woman only can love.” 

“ Loves me? Well, of course. I found her, and brought her home; 
and I don’t deny she may think that she owes me somewhat — though 
it was no more than a Christian man’s duty. But as for her caring 
much for me, mother, you measure every one else’s tenderness by your 
own.” 

“ Think that she owes you somewhat? Silly boy, this is not grati- 
tude, but a deeper affection, which may be more heavenly than grati- 
tude, as it may, too, become a horrible cause of ruin. It rests with you, 
Amyas, which of the two it will be.” 

“ You are in earnest? ” 

“ Have I the heart or the time to jest? ” 

“ No, no, of course not: but, mother, I thought it was not comely for 
women to fall in love with men? ” 

“ Not comely, at least, to confess their love to men. But she has 
never done that, Amyas; not even by a look or a tone of voice, though 
I have watched her for months.” 

“ To be sure, she is as demure as any cat when I am in the way. I 
only wonder how you found it out.” 

“Ah,” said she, smiling sadly, “ even in the saddest woman’s soul 
there linger snatches of old music, odors of flowers long dead and 


544 


Westwara Ho ! 

turned to dust, — pleasant ghosts, which still keep her mind attuned to 
that which may be in others, though in her never more; till she can 
hear her own wedding hymn reechoed in the tones of every girl who 
loves, and sees her own wedding torch relighted in the eyes of every 
bride.” 

“You would not have me marry her?” asked blunt, practical 
Amy as. 

“ God knows what I would have, — I know not; I see neither your 
path nor my own, — no, not after weeks and months of prayer. All 
things beyond are wrapped in mist; and what will be, I know not, save 
that whatever else is wrong, mercy at least is right.” 

“ I’d sail to-morrow, if I could. As for marrying her, mother — 
her birth, mind me ” 

“Ah, boy, boy! Are you God, to visit the sins of the parents upon 
the children? ” 

“ Not that. I don’t mean that; but I mean this, that she is half a 
Spaniard, mother; and I cannot! — Her blood may be as blue as King 
Philip’s own, but it is Spanish still! I cannot bear the thought that 
my children should have in their veins one drop of that poison.” 

“Amyas! Amyas! ” interrupted she, “ is this not, too, visiting the 
parents’ sins on the children? ” 

“ Not a whit; it is common sense, — she must have the taint of their 
bloodthirsty humor. She has it — I have seen it in her again and 
again. I have told you, have I not? Can I forget the look of her 
eyes as she stood over that galleon’s captain, with the smoking knife 
in her hand. — Ugh! And she is not tamed yet, as you can see, and 
never will be: — not that I care, except for her own sake, poor thing! ” 

“ Cruel boy! to impute as a blame to the poor child, not only the 
errors of her training, but the very madness of her love ! ” 

“ Of her love? ” 

“ Of what else, blind buzzard? From the moment that you told 
me the story of that captain’s death, I knew what was in her heart, — 
and thus it is that you requite her for having saved your life! ” 

“Umph! that is one word too much, mother. If you don’t want 
to send me crazy, don’t put the thing on the score of gratitude or duty. 
As it is, I can hardly speak civilly to her (God forgive me!) when I 
recollect that she belongs to the crew who murdered him ” — and he 
pointed to the picture, and Mrs. Leigh shuddered as he did so. 

“You feel it! You know you feel it, tender-hearted, forgiving 
angel as you are; and what do you think I must feel? ” 


545 


The C^ueen’s Command 

Oh, my son, my son!” cried she, wringing her hands, “if I be 
wretch enough to give place to the devil for a moment, does that give 
you a right to entertain and cherish him thus day by day? ” 

“ I should cherish him with a vengeance, if I brought up a crew of 
children who could boast of a pedigree of idolaters and tyrants, hunters 
of Indians, and torturers of women! How pleasant to hear her tell- 
ing Master Jack, ‘Your illustrious granduncle the Pope’s legate, 
was the man who burned Rose Salterne at Carthagena;’ or Miss 
Grace, ‘ Your great-grandfather of sixteen quarterings, the Marquis 
of this, son of the Grand-equerry that, and husband of the Princess 
t’other, used to feed his bloodhounds, when beef was scarce, with 
Indians’ babies?’ Eh, mother? These things are true, and if you 
can forget them, I cannot. Is it not enough to have made me forego 
for a while my purpose, my business, the one thing I live for, and 
that is, hunting down the Spaniards as I would adders or foxes, but 
you must ask me over and above to take one to my bosom? ” 

“ Oh, my son, my son! I have not asked you to do that; I have 
only commanded you, in God’s name, to be merciful, if you wish to 
obtain mercy. Oh, if you will not pity this poor maiden, pity your- 
self ; for God knows you stand in more need of it than she does ! ” 

Amyas was silent for a minute or two; and then, — 

“ If it were not for you, mother, would God that the Armada would 
come ! ” 

“ What, and ruin England? ” 

“ No! Curse them! Not a foot will they ever set on English soil, 
such a welcome would we give them. If I were but in the midst of 
that fleet, fighting like a man — to forget it all, with a galleon on board 
of me to larboard, and another to starboard — and then to put a linstock 
in the magazine, and go aloft in good company — I don’t care how 
soon it comes, mother, if it were not for you.” 

“ If I am in your way, Amyas, do not fear that I shall trouble you 
long.” 

“ Oh, mother, mother! do not talk in that way! I am half-mad, I 
think, already, and don’t know what I say. Yes, I am mad; mad at 
heart, though not at head. There’s a fire burning me up, night and 
day, and nothing but Spanish blood will put it out.” 

“ Or the grace of God, my poor wilful child! Who comes to the 
door? — so quickly, too? ” 

There was a loud hurried knocking, and in another minute a serv- 
ing-man hurried in with a letter. 


546 


Westward Ho 1 

“ This to Captain Amyas Leigh, with haste, haste! ” 

It was Sir Richard’s hand. Amyas tore it open; and “ a loud laugh 
laughed he.” 

“ The Armada is coming! My wish has come true, mother! ” 

“ God help us, it has! Show me the letter.” 

It was a hurried scrawl. 

“ D r - Godson, 

“ Walsingham sends word that the A da - sailed from Lisbon to 
the Groyne the 18. of May. We know no more, but have command- 
ment to stay the ships. Come down, dear lad, and give us counsel: 
and may the Lord help His Church in this great strait. 

“ Your loving Godfather, R. G.” 

“ Forgive me, mother, mother, once for all! ” cried Amyas, throw- 
ing his arms round her neck. 

“ I have nothing to forgive, my son, my son! And shall I lose 
thee, also? ” 

“ If I be killed, you will have two martyrs of your blood, 
mother! ” 

Mrs. Leigh bowed her head, and was silent. Amyas caught up his 
hat and sword, and darted forth toward Bideford. 

Amyas literally danced into Sir Richard’s hall, where he stood talk- 
ing earnestly with various merchants and captains. 

“ Gloria, gloria! gentles all! The devil is broke loose at last; and 
now we know where to have him on the hip ! ” 

“ Why so merry, Captain Leigh, when all else are sad? ” said a 
gentle voice by his side. 

“ Because I have been sad a long time, while all else were merry, 
dear lady. Is the hawk doleful when his hood is pulled off, and he 
sees the heron flapping right ahead of him? ” 

“You seem to forget the danger and the woe of us weak women, 
sir? ” 

“ I don’t forget the danger and the woe of one weak woman, 
Madam, and she the daughter of a man who once stood in this room,” 
said Amyas, suddenly collecting himself, in a low stern voice. “And 
I don’t forget the danger and the woe of one who was worth a thou- 
sand even of her. I don’t forget anything, Madam.” 

“ Nor forgive either, it seems.” 

“ It will be time to talk of forgiveness after the offender has re- 


The C^ueen’s Command 547 

pentecl and amended; and does the sailing of the Armada look like 
that? ” 

“Alas no! God help us! ” 

“ He will help us, Madam,” said Amyas. 

“Admiral Leigh,” said Sir Richard, “ we need you now, if ever. 
Here are the Queen’s orders to furnish as many ships as we can; 
though from these gentlemen’s spirit, I should say the orders were 
well-nigh needless.” 

“ Not a doubt, sir; for my part, I will fit my ship at my own charges, 
and fight her too, as long as I have a leg or an arm left.” 

“ Or a tongue to say, never surrender. I’ll warrant!” said an old 
merchant. “ You put life into us old fellows, Admiral Leigh: but it 
will be a heavy matter for those poor fellows in Virginia, and for my 
daughter, too, Madam Dare, with her young babe, as I hear, just 
born.” 

“And a very heavy matter,” said some one else, “ for those who 
have ventured their money in these cargoes, which must lie idle, 
you see, now for a year maybe — and then all the cost of unlading 
again ” 

“ My good sir,” said Grenvile, “ what have private interests to do 
with this day? Let us thank God if He only please to leave us the 
bare fee-simple of this English soil, the honor of our wives and daugh- 
ters, and bodies safe from rack and fagot, to wield the swords of free- 
men in defense of a free land, even though every town and homestead 
in England were wasted with fire, and we left to rebuild over again all 
which our ancestors have wrought for us in now six hundred years.” 

“ Right, sir! ” said Amyas. “ For my part, let my Virginian goods 
rot on the quay, if the worst comes to the worst. I begin unloading 
the Vengeance to-morrow; and to sea as soon as I can fill up my 
crew to a good fighting number.” 

And so the talk ran on; and ere two days were past, most of the 
neighboring gentlemen, summoned by Sir Richard, had come in, and 
great was the bidding against each other as to who should do most. 
Cary and Erimblecombe, with thirty tall Clovelly men, came across 
the bay, and without even asking leave of Amyas, took up their berths 
as a matter of course on board the Vengeance. In the meanwhile, 
the matter was taken up by families. The Fortescues (a numberless 
clan) offered to furnish a ship; the Chichesters another, the Stukelys 
a third; while the merchantmen were not backward. The Bucks, the 
Stranges, the Heards, joyfully unloaded their Virginian goods, and 


548 


Westward Ho \ 

replaced them with powder and shot; and in a week’s time the whole 
seven were ready once more for sea, and dropped down into Appledore 
pool, with Amyas as their admiral for the time being (for Sir Richard 
had gone by land to Plymouth to join the deliberations there), and 
waited for the first favorable wind to start for the rendezvous in the 
Sound. 

At last, upon the twenty-first of June, the clank of the capstans 
rang merrily across the flats, and amid prayers and blessings, forth 
sailed that gallant squadron over the bar, to play their part in Britain’s 
Salamis; while Mrs. Leigh stood watching as she stood once before, 
beside the churchyard wall: but not alone this time; for Ayacanora 
stood by her side, and gazed and gazed, till her eyes seemed ready to 
burst from their sockets. At last she turned away with a sob, — 

“And he never bade me good-bye, mother! ” 

“ God forgive him ! Come home and pray, my child ; there is no 
other rest on earth than prayer for woman’s heart! ” 

They were calling each other mother and daughter then? Yes. 
The sacred fire of sorrow was fast burning out all Ayacanora’s fallen 
savageness; and, like a Phoenix, the true woman was rising from those 
ashes, fair, noble, and all-enduring, as God had made her. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

How the Admiral John Hawkins testified 
against croakers. 

* 1 Oh, where be these gay Spaniards, 

Which make so great a boast 0 ? 

Oh, they shall eat the gray-goose feather, 

And we shall eat the roast 0 ! ’ ’ 

Cornish Song. 

Wiiat if the spectators who last summer gazed with just pride upon 
the noble port of Plymouth, its vast breakwater spanning the sound, 
its arsenals and docks, its two estuaries filled with gallant ships, and 
watched the great screw-liners turning within their own length by 
force invisible, or threading the crowded fleets with the ease of the 
tiniest boat; — what if, by some magic turn, the nineteenth century, 
and all the magnificence of its wealth and science, had vanished — as 
it may vanish hereafter — and they had found themselves thrown back 
three hundred years into the pleasant summer days of 1588? 

Mount Edgecombe is still there, beautiful as ever: but where are 
the docks, and where is Devonport? No vast dry-dock roofs rise at 
the water’s edge. Drake’s island carries but a paltry battery, just 
raised by the man whose name it bears ; Mount Wise is a lone gentle- 
man’s house among fields; the citadel is a pop-gun fort, which a third 
class steamer would shell into rubble for an afternoon’s amusement. 
And the shipping, where are they? The floating castles of the 
Hamoaze have dwindled to a few crawling lime-hoys; and the Cat- 
water is packed, not as now, with merchant craft, but with the ships 
who will to-morrow begin the greatest sea-fight which the world has 
ever seen. 

There they lie, a paltry squadron enough in modern eyes; the 
largest of them not equal in size to a six-and-thirty gun frigate, carry- 
ing less weight of metal than one of our new gun-boats, and able to 
employ even that at not more than a quarter of our modem range. 
Would our modern spectators, just come down by rail for a few hours, 


550 


Westward Ho ! 

to see the cavalry embark, and return to-morrow in time for dinner, 
have looked down upon that petty port, and petty fleet, with a con- 
temptuous smile, and begun some flippant speech about the progress 
of intellect, and the triumphs of science, and our benighted ancestors? 
They would have done so, doubt it not, if they belonged to the many 
who gaze on those very triumphs as on a raree-show to feed their silly 
wonder, or use and enjoy them without thankfulness or understanding, 
as the ox eats the clover thrust into his rack, without knowing or caring 
how it grew. But if any of them were of the class by whom those 
very triumphs have been achieved ; the thinkers and the workers, who 
instead of entering lazily into other men’s labors, as the mob does, 
labor themselves; who know by hard experience the struggles, the self- 
restraints, the disappointments, the slow and staggering steps, by 
which the discoverer reaches to his prize: then the smile of those men 
would not have been one of pity, but rather of filial love. For they 
would have seen in those outwardly paltry armaments the potential 
germ of that mightier one which now loads the Black Sea waves ; they 
would have been aware, that to produce it, with such materials and 
knowledge as then existed, demanded an intellect, an energy, a spirit 
of progress and invention, equal, if not superior, to those of which we 
now so loudly boast. 

But if, again, he had been a student of men rather than of machinery, 
he would have found few nobler companies on whom to exercise his 
discernment, than he might have seen in the little terrace bowling- 
green behind the Pelican Inn, on the afternoon of the nineteenth of 
July. Chatting in groups, or lounging over the low wall which com- 
manded a view of the sound and the shipping far below, were gathered 
almost every notable man of the Plymouth fleet, the whole posse 
comitatus of “ England’s forgotten worthies.” The Armada has been 
scattered by a storm. Lord Howard has been out to look for it, as far 
as the Spanish coast; but the wind has shifted to the south, and fearing 
lest the Dons should pass him, he has returned to Plymouth, uncertain 
whether the Armada will come after all or not. Slip on for a while, 
like Prince Hal, the drawer’s apron; come in through the rose-clad 
door which opens from the tavern, with a tray of long-necked Dutch 
glasses, and a silver tankard of wine, and look round you at the gallant 
captains, who are waiting for the Spanish Armada, as lions in their 
lair might wait for the passing herd of deer. 

See those five talking earnestly, in the centre of a ring, which longs 
to overhear, and yet is too respectful to approach close. Those soft 


551 


How Hie Admiral testified 

long eyes and pointed chin you recognize already; they are Walter 
Raleigh's. The fair young man in the flame-colored doublet, whose 
arm is round Raleigh’s neck, is Lord Sheffield ; opposite them stands, 
by the side of Sir Richard Grenvile, a man as stately even as he, Lord 
Sheffield’s uncle, the Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, Lord High 
Admiral of England; next to him is his son-in-law, Sir Robert South- 
well, captain of the Elizabeth Jonas : but who is that short, sturdy, 
plainly dressed man, who stands with legs a little apart, and hands 
behind his back, looking up, with keen gray eyes, into the face of 
each speaker? His cap is in his hands, so you can see the bullet head 
of crisp brown hair and the wrinkled forehead, as well as the high 
cheek bones, the short square face, the broad temples, the thick lips, 
which are yet firm as granite. A course plebeian stamp of man: yet 
the whole figure and attitude are that of boundless determination, self- 
possession, energy; and, when at last he speaks a few blunt words, all 
eyes are turned respectfully upon him; — for his name is Francis 
Drake. 

A burly, grizzled elder, in greasy sea-stained garments, contrasting 
oddly with the huge gold chain about his neck, waddles up, as if he had 
been born, and had lived ever since, in a gale of wind at sea. The 
upper half of his sharp dogged visage seems of brick-red-leather, the 
lower of badger’s fur; and as he claps Drake on the back, and, with 
a broad Devon twang, shouts, “ Be you a coming to drink your wine, 
Francis Drake, or be you not? — saving your presence, my Lord,” the 
Lord High Admiral only laughs, and bids Drake go and drink his 
wine; for John Hawkins, Admiral of the port, is the Patriarch of 
Plymouth seamen, if Drake be their hero, and says and does pretty 
much what he likes in any company on earth; not to mention that 
to-day’s prospect of an Armageddon fight has shaken him altogether 
out of his usual crabbed reserve, and made him overflow with loqua- 
cious good-humor, even to his rival Drake. 

So they push through the crowd, wherein is many another man 
whom one would gladly have spoken with face to face on earth. Mar- 
tin Frobisher and John Davis are sitting on that bench, smoking to- 
bacco from long silver pipes ; and by them are Fenton and Withring- 
ton, who have both tried to follow Drake’s path round the world, and 
failed, though by no fault of their own. The man who pledges them 
better luck next time is George Fenner, known to “ the seven Portu- 
gal,” Leicester’s pet, and captain of the galleon which Elizabeth 
bought of him. That short prim man in the huge yellow ruff, with 


552 


Westward H© I 

sharp chin, minute imperial, and self-satisfied smile, is Richard Haw- 
kins, the Complete Seaman, Admiral John’s hereafter famous and 
hapless son. The elder who is talking with him is his good uncle 
William, whose monument still stands, or should stand, in Deptford 
Church; for Admiral John set it up there but one year after this time; 
and on it record how he was, “A worshipper of the true religion, an 
especial benefactor of poor sailors, a most just arbiter in most difficult 
causes, and of a singular faith, piety, and prudence.” That, and the 
fact that he got creditably through some sharp work at Porto Rico, is 
all I know of William ITawkins : but if you or I, reader, can have as 
much or half as much said of us when we have to follow him, we shall 
have no reason to complain. 

There is John Drake, Sir Francis’s brother, ancestor of the present 
stock of Drakes ; and there is George, his nephew, a man not overwise, 
who has been round the world with Amyas ; and there is Amyas him- 
self, talking to one who answers him with fierce curt sentences, Captain 
Barker of Bristol, brother of the hapless Andrew Barker, who found 
John Oxenham’s guns, and, owing to a mutiny among his men, per- 
ished by the Spaniards in Honduras, twelve years ago. Barker is now 
captain of the Victory , one of the Queen’s best ships; and he has his 
accounts to settle with the Dons, as Amyas has ; so they are both growl- 
ing together in a corner, while all the rest are as merry as the flies upon 
the vine above their heads. 

But who is the aged man who sits upon a bench, against the sunny 
south wall of the tavern, his long white beard flowing almost to his 
waist, his hands upon his knees, his palsied head moving slowly from 
side to side, to catch the scraps of discourse of the passing captains? 
His great-grandchild, a little maid of six, has laid her curly head upon 
his knees, and his granddaughter, a buxom black-eyed dame of thirty, 
stands by him and tends him, half as nurse, and half, too, as showman, 
for he seems an object of curiosity to all the captains, and his fair nurse 
has to entreat again and again, “ Bless you, sir, please now, don’t give 
him no liquor, poor old soul, the doctor says.” It is old Martin Cock- 
rem, father of the ancient host, aged himself beyond the years of man, 
who can recollect the bells of Plymouth ringing for the coronation of 
Henry the Eighth, and who was the first Englishman, perhaps, who 
ever set foot on the soil of the New World. There he sits, like an old 
Druid Tor of primaeval granite amid the tall wheat and rich clover 
crops of a modern farm. He has seen the death of old Europe and the 
birth-throes of the new. Go to him, and question him; for his senses 


How the Admiral testified 553 

are quick as ever; and just now the old man seems uneasy. He is 
peering with rheumy eyes through the groups, and seems listening for 
a well-known voice. 

“ There ’a be again! Why don’t ’a come, then? ” 

“ Quiet, Gramfer, and don’t trouble his worship.” 

“ Here an hour, and never speak to poor old Martin! I say, sir ” — 
and the old man feebly plucks Amyas’s cloak as he passes. “ I say. 
Captain, do’e tell young master old Martin’s looking for him.” 

“ Marcy, Gramfer, where’s your manners? Don’t be vexed, sir, 
he’m a’most a babe, and tejous at times, mortal.” 

“ Young master who? ” says Amyas, bending down to the old man, 
and smiling to the dame to let him have his way. 

“ Master Hawkins; he’m never been a-near me all day.” 

Off goes Amyas; and, of course, lays hold of the sleeve of young 
Richard Hawkins: but as he is in act to speak, the dame lays hold 
of his, laughing and blushing. 

“No, sir, not Mr. Richard, sir; Admiral John, sir, his father; he 
always calls him young master, poor old soul! ” and she points to the 
grizzled beard and the face scarred and tanned with fifty years of fight 
and storm. 

Amyas goes to the Admiral, and gives his message. 

“ Mercy on me! Where be my wits? Iss, I’m a-coming,” says the 
old hero in his broadest Devon, waddles off to the old man, and begins 
lugging at a pocket. “ Here, Martin, I’ve got mun, I’ve got mun, 
man alive; but his Lordship keept me so. Lookee here, then! Why, 
I do get so lusty of late, Martin, I can’t get to my pockets! ” 

And out struggle a piece of tarred string, a bundle of papers, a 
thimble, a piece of pudding-tobacco, and last of all, a little paper of 
Muscovado sugar — then as great a delicacy as any French bonbons 
would be now — which he thrusts into the old man’s eager and trem- 
bling hand. 

Old Martin begins dipping his finger into it, and rubbing it on his 
toothless gums, smiling and nodding thanks to his young master; while 
the little maid at his knee, unrebuked, takes her share also. 

“There, Admiral Leigh; both ends meet — gramfers and babies! 
You and I shall be like to that one day, young Samson! ” 

“ We shall have slain a good many Philistines first, I hope.” 

“Amen! so be it: but look to mun! so fine a sailor as ever drank 
liquor: and now greedy after a bit of sweet trade! ’tis piteous like: but 
I bring mun a bit whenever I come, and he looks for it. He’s one of 


554 


Westward Ho ! 

my own flesh like, is old Martin. He sailed with my father Captain 
Will, when they was both two little cracks aboard of a trawler; and 
my father went up, and here I am — he didn’t and there he is. We’m 
up now, we Hawkinses. We may be down again some day.” 

“ Never, I trust,” said Amyas. 

“ ’Tain’t no use trusting, young man: you go and do. I do hear 
too much of that there from my lad. Let they ministers preach till 
they’m black in the face, works is the trade ! ” with a nudge in Amvas’s 
ribs. “ Faith can’t save, nor charity neither. There, you tell with 
him, while I go play bowls with Drake. He’ll tell you a sight of 
stories. You ask him about good King Hal, now, just ” 

And off waddled the Port-admiral. 

“ You have seen good King Henry, then, father? ” said Amyas, 
interested. 

The old man’s eyes lighted at once, and he stopped mumbling his 
sugar. 

“ Seed mun? Iss, I reckon. I was with Captain Will when he 
went to meet the Frenchman there to Calais — at the Field, the 
Field ” 

“ The Field of the Cloth of Gold, Gramfer,” suggested the dame. 

“ That’s it. Seed mun? Iss, fegs. Oh, he was a king ! The face 
o’ mun like a rising sun, and the back o’ mun so broad as that there ” 
(and he held out his palsied arms), “ and the voice of mun! Oh, to 
hear mun swear if he was merry, oh, ’twas royal! — Seed mun? Iss, 
fegs ! And I’ve seed mun do what few has ; I’ve seed mun christle like 
any child.” 

“ What — cry? ” said Amyas. “ I shouldn’t have thought there was 
much cry in him.” 

“ You think what you like ” 

“ Gramfer, Gramfer, don’t you be rude, now ” 

“ Let him go on,” said Amyas. 

“ I seed mun christle; and, oh dear, how he did put hands on mun’s 
face; and ‘ Oh, my gentlemen,’ says he, ‘ my gentlemen! Oh, my gal- 
lant men! ’ Them was his very words.” 

“ But when? ” 

“ Why, Captain Will had just come to the Hard — that’s to Ports- 
mouth — to speak with mun, and the barge Royal lay again the Hard — 
so; and our boot alongside — so; and the king he standth as it might be 
there, above my head, on the quay edge, and she come in near abreast 
of us, looking most royal to behold, poor dear! and went to cast about. 


How the Admiral testified 555 

And Captain Will, saith he, 4 Them lower ports is cruel near the 
water ; 5 for she had not more than a sixteen inches to spare in the 
nether overloop, as I heard after. And saith he, 4 That won’t do for 
going to windward in a say, Martin.’ And as the words came out of 
mun’s mouth, your worship, there was a bit of a flaw from the west- 
ward, sharp like, and overboard goeth my cap, and hitth against the 
wall, and as I stooped to pick it up, I heard a cry, and it was all over! ” 

“ He is telling of the Mary Rose , sir.” 

“ I guessed so.” 

“ All over: and the cry of mun, and the screech of mun! Oh, sir, 
up to the very heavens ! And the king he screeched right out like any 
maid, 4 Oh, my gentlemen, oh, my gallant men ! ’ and as she lay on her 
beam-ends, sir, and just a-settling, the very last souls I seen was that 
man’s father, and that man’s. I knowed mun by their armor.” 

And he pointed to Sir George Carew and Sir Richard Grenvile. 

“ Iss! Iss! Drowned like rattens. Drowned like rattens! ” 

“ Now; you mustn’t trouble his worship any more.” 

“ Trouble? Let him tell till midnight, I shall be well pleased,” said 
Amyas, sitting down on the bench by him. 44 Drawer! ale — and a 
parcel of tobacco.” 

And Amyas settled himself to listen, while the old man purred to 
himself — 

44 Iss. They likes to hear old Martin. All the captains look upon 
old Martin.” 

44 Hillo, Amyas! ” said Cary, 44 who’s your friend? Here’s a man 
been telling me wonders about the River Plate. We should go 
thither for luck there next time.” 

44 River Plate? ” said old Martin. 44 It’s I knows about the River 
Plate ; none so well. Who’d ever been there, nor heard of it nether, 
before Captain Will and me went, and I lived among the savages a 
whole year; and audacious civil I found ’em if they’d had but shirts 
to their backs; and so was the prince o’ mun, that Captain Will 
brought home to King Henry; leastwise he died on the voyage; but 
the wild folk took it cruel well, for you see, we was always as civil 
with them as Christians, and if we hadn’t been, I should not have been 
here now.” 

44 What year was that? ” 

44 In the fifteen thirty: but I was there afore, and learned the speech 
o’ mun; and that’s why Captain Will left me to a hostage when he 
tuked their prince.” 


556 Westward Ho * 

“ Before that? ” said Cary. “ Why, the country was hardly known 
before that.” 

The old man’s eyes flashed up in triumph. 

“ Knowed ? Iss, and you may well say that ! Look ye here ! Look 
to mun! ” and he waved his hand round — “ There’s captains! and I’m 
the father of ’em all now, now poor Captain Will’s in gloory; I, 
Martin Cockrem! . . . Iss, I’ve seen a change. I mind when 

Tavistock Abbey was so full o’ friars, and goolden idols, and sich 
noxious trade, as ever was a wheat-rick of rats. I mind the fight off 
Brest in the French wars — Oh, that was a fight, surely! — when the 
Regent and the French Carack were burnt side by side, being fast 
grappled, you see, because of Sir Thomas Knivet; and Captain Will 
gave him warning as he ran a-past us, saying, says he ” 

“ But,” said Amy as, seeing that the old man was wandering away, 
“ what do you mind about America? ” 

“ America? I should think so! But I was a-going to tell you of 
the Regent — and seven hundred Englishmen burnt and drowned in 
her, and nine hundred French in the Brest ship, besides what we 
picked up. Oh dear! But about America.” 

“ Yes, about America. How are you the father of all the cap- 
tains? ” 

“ How? you ask my young master! Why, before the fifteen thirty, 
I was up the Plate with Cabot (and a cruel fractious ontrustful fellow 
he was, like all they Portingals), and bid there a year and more, and 
up the Paraguaio with him, diskivering no end; whereby, gentles, I 
was the first Englishman, I hold, that ever sot a foot on the New 
World, I was!” 

“ Then here’s your health, and long life, sir! ” said Amyas and Cary. 

“Long life? Iss, fegs, I reckon, long enough a’ ready! Why, I 
mind the beginning of it all, I do. I mind when there wasn’t a master 
mariner to Plymouth, that thought there was aught west of the 
Land’s End except herrings. Why, they held them, pure wratches, 
that if you sailed right west away far enough, you’d surely come to the 
edge, and fall over cleve. Iss — ’Twas dark parts round here, till 
Captain Will arose; and the first of it I mind was inside the bar of 
San Lucar, and he and I were boys about a ten year old, aboord of a 
Dartmouth ship, and went for wine; and there come in over the bar he 
that was the beginning of it all.” 

“ Columbus? ” 


How the Admiral testified 557 

Iss, fegs, he did, not a pistol-shot from us; and I saw mun stand 
on the poop, so plain as I see you; no great shakes of a man to look 
to nether ; there’s a sight better here, to plase me ; and we was disap- 
pointed, we lads, for we surely expected to see mun with a goolden 
crown on, and a sceptre to a’s hand, we did, and the ship o’ mun all 
over like Solomon’s temple for gloory. And I mind that same year, 
too, seeing Vasco de Gama, as was going out over the bar, when he 
found the Bona Speranza, and sailed round it to the Indies. Ah, 
that was the making of they rascally Portingals, it was! . . . 

And our crew told what they seen and heerd: but nobody minded 
sich things. ’Twas dark parts, and Popish, then; and nobody 
knowed nothing, nor got no schooling, nor cared for nothing, but 
scrattling up and down along-shore like to prawns in a pule. Iss., 
sitting in darkness, we was, and the shadow of death, till the day-spring 
from on high arose, and shined upon us poor out-o’-the-way folk — 
The Lord be praised! And now, look to mun!” and he waved his 
hand all round — “ Look to mun ! Look to the works of the Lord ! 
Look to the captains! Oh blessed sight! And one’s been to the 
Brazils, and one to the Indies, and the Spanish Main, and the North- 
west, and the Rooshias, and the Chinas, and up the Straits, and round 
the Cape, and round the world of God, too, bless His holy name ; and 
I seed the beginning of it; and I’ll see the end of it too, I will! I was 
born into the old times: but I’ll see the wondrous works of the new, 
yet, I will ! I’ll see they bloody Spaniards swept off the seas before I 
die, if my old eyes can reach so far as outside the Sound. I shall, I 
knows it. I says my prayers for it every night; don’t I, Mary? 
You’ll bate mun; sure as Judgment, you’ll bate mun! The Lord’ll 
fight for ye. Nothing’ll stand against ye. I’ve seed it all along — 
ever since I was with young master to the Honduras. They can’t 
bide the push of us! You’ll bate mun off the face of the seas, and 
be masters of the round world, and all that therein is. And then, I’ll 
just turn my old face to the wall, and depart in peace, according to 
His word. 

“ Deary me, now, while I’ve been telling with you, here’ve this 
little maid been and ate up all my sugar! ” 

“ I’ll bring you some more,” said Amyas; whom the childish bathos 
of the last sentence moved rather to sighs than laughter. 

“ Will ye, then? There’s a good soul, and come and tell with old 
Martin. He likes to see the brave young gentlemen, a-going to and 
fro in their ships, like Leviathan, and taking of their pastime therein. 


558 


Westward Ho i 

We had no such ships to our days. Ah, ’tis grand times, beautiful 
times surely — and you’ll bring me a bit sugar? ” 

“You were up the Plate with Cabot?” said Cary, after a pause. 
“ Do you mind the fair lady Miranda, Sebastian de Hurtado’s wife? ” 

“ What! her that was burnt by the Indians? Mind her? Do you 
mind the sun in heaven? Oh, the beauty ! Oh, the ways of her ! Oh, 
the speech of her! Never was, nor never will be! And she to die by 
they villains; and all for the goodness of her! Mind her? I minded 
nought else when she was on deck.” 

“ Who was she? ” asked Amyas of Cary. 

“ A Spanish angel, Amyas.” 

“ Humph! ” said Amyas. “ So much the worse for her, to be born 
into a nation of devils.” 

“ They’m not all so bad as that, yer honor. Her husband was a 
proper gallant gentleman, and kind as a maid, too, and couldn’t abide 
that De Solis’s murderous doings.” 

“ His wife must have taught it him, then,” said Amyas, rising. 
“ Where did you hear of these black swans, Cary? ” 

“ I have heard of them, and that’s enough,” answered he, unwilling 
to stir sad recollections. 

“And little enough,” said Amyas. “ Will, don’t talk to me. The 
devil is not grown white because he has trod in a lime-heap.” 

“ Or an angel black because she came down a chimney,” said Cary; 
and so the talk ended, or rather was cut short; for the talk of all the 
groups was interrupted by an explosion from old John Hawkins. 

“ Fail? Fail? What a murrain do you here, to talk of failing? 
Who made you a prophet, you scurvy, hang-in-the-wind, croaking, 
white-livered son of a corby-crow? ” 

“ Heaven help us, Admiral Hawkins, who has put fire to your cul- 
verins in this fashion? ” said Lord Howard. 

“Who? my Lord! Croakers! my Lord! Here’s a fellow calls 
himself the captain of a ship, and Her Majesty’s servant, and talks 
about failing, as if he were a Barbican loose-kirtle trying to keep her 
apple-squire ashore! Blurt for him, sneak up! say I.” 

“Admiral J ohn Hawkins,” quoth the offender, “ you shall answer 
this language with your sword.” 

“ I’ll answer it with my foot; and buy me a pair of horn-tips to my 
shoes, like a wraxling man. Fight a croaker? Fight a frog, an owl! 
I fight those that dare fight, sir! ” 

“ Sir, sir, moderate yourself. I am sure this gentleman will show 


559 


How Hie Admiral testified 

himself as brave as any, when it comes to blows: but who can blame 
mortal man for trembling before so fearful a chance as this? ” 

“ Let mortal man keep his tremblings to himself, then, my Lord, 
and not be like Solomon’s madmen, casting abroad fire and death, and 
saying, it is only in sport. There is more than one of his kidney, your 
Lordship, who have not been ashamed to play Mother Shipton before 
their own sailors and damp the poor fellows’ hearts with crying before 
they’re hurt, and this is one of them. I’ve heard him at it afore, 
and I’ll present him, with a vengeance, though I’m no church- 
warden.” 

“ If this is really so, Admiral Hawkins ” 

“ It is so, my Lord! I heard only last night, down in a tavern be- 
low, such unbelieving talk as made me mad, my Lord ; and if it had not 
been after supper, and my hand was not over-steady, I would have let 
out a pottle of Alicant from some of their hoopings, and sent them to 
Dick Surgeon, to wrap them in swaddling-clouts, like whining babies 
as they are. Marry come up, what says Scripture? ‘ He that is fear- 
ful and faint-hearted among you, let him go and’ — what? son Dick 
there? Thou’rt pious, and read’st thy Bible. What’s that text? A 
mortal fine one it is, too.” 

“ ‘ He that is fearful and faint-hearted among you, let him go 
back,’ ” quoth the Complete Seaman. “ Captain Merry weather, as 
my father’s command, as well as his years, forbid his answering your 
challenge, I shall repute it an honor to entertain his quarrel myself — 
place, time, and weapons being at your choice.” 

“ Well spoken, son Dick! — and like a true courtier, too! Ah! thou 
hast the palabras, and the knee, and the cap, and the quip, and the 
innuendo, and the true Town fashion of it all — no old tarry-breeks of 
a sea-dog, like thy dad! My Lord, you’ll let them fight? ” 

“ The Spaniard, sir: but no one else. But, captains and gentlemen, 
consider well my friend the Port Admiral’s advice; and if any man’s 
heart misgives him, let him, for the sake of his country and his Queen, 
have so much government of his tongue to hide his fears in his own 
bosom, and leave open complaining to ribalds and women. For if the 
sailor be not cheered by his commander’s cheerfulness, how will the 
ignorant man find comfort in himself? And without faith and hope, 
how can he fight worthily ? ” 

“ There is no croaking aboard of us, we will warrant,” said twenty 
voices, “ and shall be none, as long as we command on board our own 
ships.” 


500 Westward Ho ! 

Hawkins, having blown off his steam, went back to Drake and the 
bowls. 

“ Fill my pipe, Drawer — that croaking fellow’s made me let it out, 
of course! Spoil-sports! The father of all manner of troubles on 
earth, be they noxious trade of croakers! ‘Better to meet a bear 
robbed of her whelps,’ Francis Drake, as Solomon saith, than a fule 
who can’t keep his mouth shut. What brought Mr. Andrew Barker 
to his death, but croakers? What stopped Fenton’s China voyage in 
the ’82, and lost your nephew John, and my brother Will, glory and 
hard cash too, but croakers? What sent back my Lord Cumberland’s 
armada in the ’86, and that after they’d proved their strength, too, 
sixty o’ mun against six hundred Portugals and Indians; and yet 
weren’t ashamed to turn round and come home empty-handed, after 
all my Lord’s expenses that he had been at? What but these same 
beggarly croakers, that be only fit to be turned into yellow-hammers 
up to Dartymoor, and sit on a tor all day, and cry ‘ Very little bit of 
bread, and no chee-e-ese ! ’ Marry, sneak-up ! say I again.” 

“And what,” said Drake, “ would have kept me, if I’d let ’em, from 
ever sailing round the world, but these same croakers? I hanged my 
best friend for croaking, John Hawkins, may God forgive me if I was 
wrong, and I threatened a week after to hang thirty more; and I’d 
have done it too, if they hadn’t clapped tompions into their muzzles 
pretty fast.” 

“ You’m right, Frank. My old father always told me — and old 
King Hal (Bless his memory!) would take his counsel among a thou- 
sand ; — ‘And, my son,’ says he to me, ‘ whatever you do, never you 
stand no croaking: but hang mun, son Jack, hang mun up for an en- 
sign. There’s Scripture for it,’ says he (he was a mighty man to his 
Bible, after bloody Mary’s days, leastwise) , ‘ and ’tis written,’ says he, 

‘ It’s expedient that one man die for the crew, and that the whole crew 
perish not; so show you no mercy, son Jack, or you’ll find none, least- 
wise in they manner of cattle : for if you fail, they stamps on you, and 
if you succeeds, they takes the credit of it to themselves, and goes to 
heaven in your shoes.’ Those were his words, and I’ve found mun 
true. — Who com’th here now? ” 

“ Captain Fleming, as I’m a sinner.” 

“ Fleming? Is he tired of life, that he com’th here to look for a 
halter? I’ve a warrant out against mun, for robbing of two Flush- 
ingers on the high seas, now this very last year. Is the fellow mazed 
or drunk, then? or has he seen a ghost? Look to mun! ” 


How Ihe Admiral testified sei 

“ I think so, truly,” said Drake. “ His eyes are near out of his 
head.” 

The man was a rough-bearded old sea-dog, who had just burst in 
front the tavern through the low hatch, upsetting a drawer with all his 
glasses, and now came panting and blowing straight up to the High 
Admiral, — 

“My Lord, my Lord! They’m coming! I saw them off the 
Lizard last night! ” 

“Who? my good sir, who seem to have left your manners behind 
you.” 

“ The Armada, your worship, — the Spaniard: but as for my man- 
ners, ’tis no fault of mine, for I never had none to leave behind me.” 

“ If he has not left his manners behind,” quoth Hawkins, “ look out 
for your purses, gentlemen all ! He’s manners enough, and very bad 
ones they be, when he com’th across a quiet Flushinger.” 

“ If I stole Flushingers’ wines, I never stole Negurs’ souls, Jack 
Hawkins; so there’s your answer. My Lord, hang me if you will; 
life’s short and death’s easy, ’specially to seamen; but if I didn’t see the 
Spanish fleet last sun-down, coming along half -moon wise, and full 
seven mile from wing to wing, within a four mile of me, I’m a sin- 
ner. 

“ Sirrah,” said Lord Howard, “ is this no fetch, to cheat us out of 
your pardon for these piracies of yours? ” 

“ You’ll find out for yourself before nightfall, my Lord High Ad- 
miral. All Jack Fleming says, is, that this is a poor sort of an answer 
to a man who has put his own neck into the halter for the sake of his 
country.” 

“ Perhaps it is,” said Lord Howard. “And after all, gentlemen, 
what can this man gain by a lie, which must be discovered ere a day is 
over, except a more certain hanging? ” 

“ Very true, your Lordship,” said Hawkins, mollified. “ Come 
here, Jack Fleming— what wilt drain, man? Hippocras or Alicant, 
Sack or John Barleycorn, and a pledge to thy repentance and amend- 
ment of life.” 

“Admiral Hawkins, Admiral Hawkins, this is no time for drink- 
ing.” 

“ Why not, then, my Lord? Good news should be welcomed with 
good wine. Frank, send down to the sexton, and set the bells a-ring- 
ing to cheer up all honest hearts. Why, my Lord, if it were not for 
the gravity of my office, I could dance a galliard for joy ! ” 


562 


Westward Ho I 

“ Well, you may dance. Port Admiral: but I must go and plan, but 
God give to all captains such a heart as yours this day ! ” 

“And God give all generals such a head as yours! Come, Frank 
Drake, we’ll play the game out before we move. It will be two good 
days before we shall be fit to tackle them, so an odd half-hour don’t 
matter.” 

“ I must command the help of your counsel, Vice-Admiral,” said 
Lord Charles, turning to Drake. 

“And it’s this, my good Lord,” said Drake, looking up, as he aimed 
his bowl. “ They’ll come soon enough for us to show them sport, and 
yet slow enough for us to be ready; so let no man hurry himself. And 
as example is better than precept, here goes.” 

Lord Howard shrugged his shoulders, and departed, knowing two 
things; first, that to move Drake was to move mountains; and next, 
that when the self-taught hero did bestir himself, he would do more 
work in an hour than any one else in a day. So he departed, followed 
hastily by most of the captains; and Drake said in a low voice to 
Hawkins — 

“ Does he think we are going to knock about on a lee-shore all the 
afternoon and run our noses at night — and dead up-wind, too — into 
the Dons’ mouths? No, Jack, my friend. Let Orlando-Furioso- 
punctilio-fire-eaters go and get their knuckles rapped. The following 
game is the game, and not the meeting one. The dog goes after the 
sheep, and not afore them, lad. Let them go by, and go by, and stick 
to them well to windward, and pick up stragglers, and pickings, too, 
Jack — the prizes, Jack! ” 

“ Trust my old eyes for not being over-quick at seeing signals, if I 
be hanging in the skirts of a fat-looking Don. We’m the eagles, 
Drake; and where the carcase is, is our place, eh? ” 

And so the two old sea-dogs chatted on, while their companions 
dropped off one by one, and only Amyas remained. 

“ Eh, Captain Leigh, where’s my boy Dick? ” 

“ Gone off with his lordship, Sir John.” 

“ On his punctilios too, I suppose, the young slashed-breeks. He’s 
half a Don, that fellow, with his fine scholarship, and his fine manners, 
and his fine clothes. He’ll get a taking down before he dies, unless he 
mends. Why ain’t you gone too, sir? ” 

“ I follow my leader,” said Amyas, filling his pipe. 

“ Well said, my big man,” quoth Drake. “ If I could lead you 
round the world, I can lead you up Channel, can’t I? — Eh? my little 


How Hie Admiral testified 563 

bantam-cock of the Orinoco? Drink, lad! You’re over-sad to- 
day.” 

“ Not a whit,” said Amyas. “ Only I can’t help wondering whether 
I shall find him, after all.” 

“ Whom? That Don? We’ll find him for you, if he’s in the fleet. 
We’ll squeeze it out of our prisoners somehow. Eh, Hawkins? I 
thought all the captains had promised to send you news if they heard 
of him.” 

“Ay, but it’s ill looking for a needle in a haystack. But I shall find 
him. I am a coward to doubt it,” said Amyas, setting his teeth. 

“ There, Vice- Admiral, you’re beaten, and that’s the rubber. Pay 
up three dollars, old high-flyer, and go and earn more, like an honest 
adventurer.” 

“ Well,” said Drake, as he pulled out his purse, “ we’ll walk down 
now, and see about these young hot-heads. As I live, they are setting 
to tow the ships out already ! Breaking the men’s backs overnight, to 
make them fight the lustier in the morning! Well, well, they haven’t 
sailed round the world, Jack Hawkins.” 

“ Or had to run home from St. Juan d’Ulloa with half a crew.” 

“ Well if we haven’t to run out with half crews. I saw a sight of 
our lads drunk about this morning.” 

“ The more reason for waiting till they be sober. Besides, if every- 
body’s caranting about to once each after his own men, nobody’ll find 
nothing in such a scrimmage as that. Bye, bye, Uncle Martin. We’m 
going to blow the Dons up now in earnest.” 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Great Armada . 

4 1 Britannia needs no bulwarks, 

No towers along the steep, 

Her march is o’er the mountain wave, 

Her home is on the deep.” 

Campbell, Ye Mariners of England. 

And now began that great sea-fight which was to determine whether 
Popery and despotism or Protestantism and freedom, were the law 
which God had appointed for the half of Europe, and the whole of 
future America. It is a twelve days’ epic, worthy, as I said in the 
beginning of this book, not of dull prose, but of the thunder-roll of 
Homer’s verse : but having to tell it, I must do my best, rather using, 
where I can, the words of contemporary authors than my own. 

“ The Lord High Admirall of England, sending a pinnace before, 
called the Defiance , denounced war by discharging her ordnance ; and 
presently approaching within musquet-shot, with much thundering 
out of his own ship, called the Arkroyall (alias the Triumph ) , first set 
upon the admirall’s, as he thought, of the Spaniards (but it was 
Alfonso de Leon’s ship). Soon after, Drake, Hawkins, and Fro- 
bisher played stoutly with their ordnance on the hindmost squadron, 
which was commanded by Recalde.” The Spaniards soon discover 
the superior “ nimbleness of the English ships and Recalde’s squad- 
ron, finding that they are getting more than they give, in spite of his 
endeavors, hurry forward to join the rest of the fleet. Medina, the 
Admiral, finding his ships scattering fast, gathers them into a half- 
moon; and the Armada tries to keep solemn way forward, like a stately 
herd of buffaloes, who march on across the prairie, disdaining to notice 
the wolves which snarl around their track. But in vain. These are no 
wolves, but cunning hunters, swiftly horsed, and keenly armed, and 
who will “ shamefully shuffle ” (to use Drake’s own expression) that 
vast herd from the Lizard to Portland, from Portland to Calais Roads; 













































































































































■ 






















































































565 


The Great Armada 

and who, even in this short two hours’ fight, have made many a Span- 
iard question the boasted invincibleness of this Armada. 

One of the four great galliasses is already riddled with shot, to the 
great disarrangement of her “ pulpits, chapels,” and friars therein as- 
sistant. The fleet has to close round her, or Drake and Hawkins will 
sink her; in effecting which manoeuvre, the “ principal galleon of Se- 
ville,” in which are Pedro de Valdez and a host of blue-blooded Dons, 
runs foul of her neighbor, carries away her foremast, and is, in spite of 
Spanish chivalry, left to her fate. This does not look like victory, 
certainly. But courage! though Valdez be left behind, “ our Lady ” 
and the saints, and the Bull Coena Domini (dictated by one whom I 
dare not name here) , are with them still, and it were blasphemous to 
doubt. But in the meanwhile, if they have fared no better than this 
against a third of the Plymouth fleet, how will they fare when those 
forty belated ships, which are already whitening the blue between them 
and the Mewstone, enter the scene to play their part? 

So ends the first day; not an English ship, hardly a man, is hurt. 
It has destroyed forever, in English minds, the prestige of boastful 
Spain. It has justified utterly the policy which the good Lord How- 
ard had adopted by Raleigh’s and Drake’s advice, of keeping up a run- 
ning fight, instead of “ clapping ships together without consideration,” 
in which case, says Raleigh, “ he had been lost, if he had not been better 
advised than a great many malignant fools were, who found fault with 
his demeanor.” 

Be that as it may, so ends the first day, in which Amyas and the 
other Bideford ships have been right busy for two hours, knocking 
holes in a huge galleon, which carries on her poop a maiden with a 
wheel, and bears the name of Sta. Catharina. She had a coat of arms 
on the flag at her sprit, probably those of the commandant of soldiers ; 
but they were shot away early in the fight, so Amyas cannot tell 
whether they were De Soto’s or not. Nevertheless, there is plenty of 
time for private revenge ; and Amyas, called off at last by the admiral’s 
signal, goes to bed and sleeps soundly. 

But ere he has been in his hammock an hour, he is awakened by 
Cary’s coming down to ask for orders. 

“We were to follow Drake’s lantern, Amyas; but where it is, I 
can’t see, unless he has been taken up aloft there among the stars for a 
new Drakium Sidus.” 

Amyas turns out grumbling: but no lantern is to be seen; only a 
sudden explosion and a great fire on board some Spaniard, which is 


566 


Westward Ho I 

gradually got under, while they have to lie-to the whole night long, 
with nearly the whole fleet. 

The next morning finds them off Torbay; and Amy as is hailed by a 
pinnace, bringing a letter from Drake, which (saving the spelling, 
which was somewhat arbitrary, like most men’s in those days) ran 
somewhat thus: — 

“ Dear Lad, 

“ I have been wool-gathering all night after five great hulks, 
which the Pixies transfigured overnight into galleons, and this morn- 
ing again into German merchantmen. I let them go with my bless- 
ing; and coming back, fell in (God be thanked!) with Valdez’ great 
galleon; and in it good booty, which the Dons his fellows had left be- 
hind, like faithful and valiant comrades, and the Lord Howard had let 
slip past him, thinking her deserted by her crew. I have sent to Dart- 
mouth a sight of noblemen and gentlemen, maybe a half-hundred ; and 
Valdez himself, who when I sent my pinnace aboard must needs stand 
on his punctilios, and propound conditions. I answered him, I had no 
time to tell with him; if he would needs die, then I was the very man 
for him; if he would live, then, buena querra. He sends again, boast- 
ing that he was Don Pedro Valdez, and that it stood not with his honor, 
and that of the Dons in his company. I replied, that for my part, I 
was Francis Drake, and my matches burning. Whereon he finds in 
my name salve for the wounds of his own, and comes aboard, kissing 
my fist, with Spanish lies of holding himself fortunate that he had 
fallen into the hands of fortunate Drake, and much more, which he 
might have kept to cool his porridge. But I have much news from 
him (for he is a leaky tub) ; and among others, this, that your Don 
Guzman is aboard of the Sta. Catliarina , commandant of her soldiery, 
and has his arms flying at her sprit, beside Sta. Catharina at the poop, 
which is a maiden with a wheel, and is a lofty built ship of 3 tier of 
ordnance, from which God preserve you, and send you like luck with 
“ Your deare Friend and Admirall, 

“ F. Drake. 

“ She sails in this squadron of Recalde. The Armada was minded 
to smoke us out of Plymouth ; and God’s grace it was they tried not : 
but their orders from home are too strait, and so the slaves fight like 
a bull in a tether, no farther than their rope, finding thus the devil a 
hard master, as do most in the end. They cannot compass our quick 


The Great Armada 567 

handling and tacking, and take us for very witches. So far so good, 
and better to come. You and I know the length of their foot of old. 
Time and light will kill any hare, and they will find it a long way from 
Start to Dunkirk.” 

“ The admiral is in a gracious humor, Leigh, to have vouchsafed you 
so long a letter.” 

“ Sta. Catharine! why, that was the galleon we hammered all yester- 
day ! ” said Amyas, stamping on the deck. 

“ Of course it was. Well, we shall find her again, doubt not. 
That cunning old Drake ! how he has contrived to line his own pockets, 
even though he had to keep the whole fleet waiting for him.” 

“ He has given the Lord High Admiral the dor, at all events.” 

“ Lord Howard is too high-hearted to stop and plunder, Papist 
though he is, Amyas.” 

Amyas answered by a growl, for he worshipped Drake, and was not 
too just to Papists. 

The fleet did not find Lord Howard till nightfall; he and Lord Shef- 
field had been holding on steadfastly the whole night after the Spanish 
lanterns, with two ships only. At least there was no doubt now of the 
loyalty of English Roman Catholics, and, indeed, throughout the fight, 
the Howards showed (as if to wipe out the slurs which had been cast 
on their loyalty by fanatics) a desperate courage, which might have 
thrust less prudent men into destruction, but led them only to victory. 
Soon a large Spaniard drifts by, deserted and partly burnt. Some 
of the men are for leaving their place to board her; but Amyas stoutly 
refuses. He has “ come out to fight, and not to plunder; so let the 
nearest ship to her have her luck without grudging.” They pass on, 
and the men pull long faces when they see the galleon snapped up by 
their next neighbor, and towed off to Weymouth, where she proves to 
be the ship of Miguel d’Oquenda, the Vice-Admiral, which they saw 
last night, all but blown up by some desperate Netherland gunner, 
who, being “ mis-used,” was minded to pay off old scores on his 
tyrants. 

* And so ends the second day; while the Portland rises higher and 
clearer every hour. The next morning finds them off the island. Will 
they try Portsmouth, though they have spared Plymouth? The wind 
has shifted to the north, and blows clear and cool off the white-walled 
downs of Weymouth Bay. The Spaniards turn and face the English. 
They must mean to stand off and on until the wind shall change, and 


568 


Westward Ho l 

then to try for the Needles. At least, they shall have some work to do 
before they round Purbeck Isle. 

The English go to the westward again: but it is only to return on 
the opposite tack ; and now begin a series of manoeuvres, each fleet try- 
ing to get the wind of the other; but the struggle does not last long, 
and ere noon the English fleet have slipped close-hauled between the 
Armada and the land, and are coming down upon them right before 
the wind. 

And now begins a fight most fierce and fell. “And fight they did 
confusedly, and with variable fortunes; while, on the one hand, the 
English manfully rescued the ships of London, which were hemmed in 
by the Spaniards ; and, on the other side, the Spaniards as stoutly de- 
livered Recalde being in danger.” “ Never was heard such thunder- 
ing of ordnance on both sides, which notwithstanding from the Span- 
iards flew for the most part over the English without harm. Only 
Cock, an Englishman ” (whom Prince claims, I hope rightfully, as a 
worthy of Devon), died with honor in the midst of the enemies in a 
small ship of his. For the English ships, being far the lesser, charged 
the enemy with marvelous agility; and having discharged their broad- 
sides, flew forth presently into the deep, and leveled their shot di- 
rectly, without missing, at those great and unwieldy Spanish ships.” 
“ This was the most furious and bloody skirmish of all ” (though end- 
ing only, it seems, in the capture of a great Venetian and some small 
craft) , “ in which the Lord Admiral fighting amidst his enemies’ fleet, 
and seeing one of his captains afar off (Fenner by name, he who fought 
the seven Portugals at the Azores), cried, ‘O George, what doest 
thou? Wilt thou now frustrate my hope and opinion conceived of 
thee? Wilt thou forsake me now? ’ With which words he being en- 
flamed, approached, and did the part of a most valiant captain; ” as, 
indeed, did all the rest. 

Night falls upon the floating volcano; and morning finds them far 
past Purbeck, with the white peak of Freshwater ahead; and pouring 
out past the Needles, ship after ship, to join the gallant chase. For 
now from all havens, in vessels fitted out at their own expense, flock 
the chivalry of England; the Lords Oxford, Northumberland, and 
Cumberland, Pallavicin, Brooke, Carew, Raleigh, and Blunt, and 
many another honorable name, “ as to a set field, where immortal fame 
and honor was to be attained.” Spain has staked her chivalry in that 
mighty cast; not a noble house of Arragon or Castile but has lent a 
brother or a son — and shall mourn the loss of one : and England’s gen- 


569 


The Great Armada 

tlemen will measure their strength once for all against the Cavaliers 
of Spain. Lord Howard has sent forward light craft into Ports- 
mouth for ammunition: but they will scarce return to-night, for the 
wind falls dead, and all the evening the two fleets drift helpless with 
the tide, and shout idle defiance at each other with trumpet, fife, and 
drum. 

The sun goes down upon a glassy sea, and rises on a glassy sea again. 
But what day is this? The twenty-fifth, St. James’s-day, sacred to 
the patron saint of Spain. Shall nothing be attempted in his honor by 
those whose forefathers have so often seen him with their bodily eyes, 
charging in their van upon his snow-white steed, and scattering Pay- 
nims with celestial lance? He might have sent them, certainly, a 
favoring breeze; perhaps, he only means to try their faith; at least, the 
galleys shall attack; and in their van three of the great galliasses (the 
fourth lies half-crippled among the fleet) thrash the sea to foam with 
three hundred oars apiece; and see, not St. James leading them to vic- 
tory, but Lord Howard’s Triumph, his brother’s Lion, Southwell’s 
Elizabeth Jonas, Lord Sheffield’s Bear, Barker’s Victory, and George 
Fenner’s Leicester, towed stoutly out, to meet them with such salvos 
of chain-shot, smashing oars, and cutting rigging, that had not the wind 
sprung up again toward noon, and the Spanish fleet come up to rescue 
them, they had shared the fate of Valdez and the Biscayan . And now 
the fight becomes general. Frobisher beats down the Spanish Ad- 
miral’s mainmast; and, attacked himself by Mexia and Recalde, is res- 
cued by Lord Howard; who, himself endangered in his turn, is rescued 
in his turn; “ while after that day ” (so sickened were they of the Eng- 
lish gunnery), “ no galliasse would adventure to fight.” 

And so, with variable fortune, the fight thunders on the livelong 
afternoon, beneath the virgin cliffs of Freshwater; while myriad sea- 
fowl rise screaming up from every ledge, and spot with their black 
wings the snow-white wall of chalk; and the lone shepherd hurries 
down the slopes above to peer over the dizzy edge, and forgets the 
wheatear fluttering in his snare, while he gazes trembling upon 
glimpses of tall masts and gorgeous flags, piercing at times the league- 
broad veil of sulphur-smoke which welters far below. 

So fares St. James’s-dav, as Baal’s did on Carmel in old time. 
“ Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey; or per- 
adventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.” At least, the only fire 
by which he has answered his votaries, has been that of English can- 
non: and the Armada, “ gathering itself into a roundel,” will fight no 


570 


Westward Ho ! 

more, but make the best of its way to Calais, where perhaps the Guises’ 
faction may have a French force ready to assist them, and then to 
Dunkirk, to join with Parma and the great flotilla of the Netherlands. 

So on, before “ a fair Etesian gale,” which follows clear, and bright 
out of the south-southwest, glide forward the two great fleets, past 
Brighton Cliffs and Beachy Head, Hastings and Dungeness. Is it a 
battle or a triumph? For by sea Lord Howard, instead of fighting, is 
rewarding; and after Lord Thomas Howard, Lord Sheffield, Towns- 
end, and Frobisher have received at his hands that knighthood, which 
was then more honorable than a peerage, old Admiral Hawkins kneels 
and rises up Sir John, and shaking his shoulders after the accolade, 
observes to the representative of majesty, that his “ old woman will 
hardly know herself again, when folks call her My Lady.” 

And meanwhile the cliffs are lined with pikemen and musqueteers, 
and by every countryman and groom who can bear arms, led by their 
squires and sheriffs, marching eastward as fast as their weapons let 
them, toward the Dover shore. And not with them alone. From 
many a mile inland come down women and children, and aged folk in 
wagons, to join their feeble shouts, and prayers which are not feeble, 
to that great cry of mingled faith and fear which ascends to the throne 
of God from the spectators of Britain’s Salamis. 

Let them pray on. The danger is not over yet, though Lord How- 
ard has had news from Newhaven that the Guises will not stir against 
England, and Seymour and Winter have left their post of observation 
on the Flemish shores, to make up the number of the fleet to an hun- 
dred and forty sail — larger, slightly, than that of the Spanish fleet, 
but of not more than half the tonnage, or one-third the number of men. 
The Spaniards are dispirited and battered, but unbroken still ; and as 
they slide to their anchorage in Calais Roads on the Saturday evening 
of that most memorable week, all prudent men know well that Eng- 
land’s hour is come, and that the bells which will call all Christendom 
to church upon the morrow morn, will be either the death-knell or the 
triumphal peal of the Reformed faith throughout the world. 

A solemn day that Sabbath must have been in country and in town. 
And many a light-hearted coward, doubtless, who had scoffed (as 
many did) at the notion of the Armada’s coming, because he dare not 
face the thought, gave himself up to abject fear, “ as he now plainly 
saw and heard that of which before he would not be persuaded.” And 
many a brave man, too, as he knelt beside his wife and daughters, felt 
his heart sink to the very pavement, at the thought of what those be- 


571 


The Great Armada 

loved ones might be enduring a few short days hence, from a profligate 
and fanatical soldiery, or from the more deliberate fiendishness of the 
Inquisition. The massacre of St. Bartholomew, the fires of Smith- 
field, the immolation of the Moors, the extermination of the West 
Indians, the fantastic horrors of the Piedmontese persecution, which 
make unreadable the too truthful pages of Morland, — these were the 
spectres which, not as now, dim and distant through the mist of cen- 
turies, but recent, bleeding from still gaping wounds, flitted before the 
eyes of every Englishman, and filled his brain and heart with fire. 

ITe knew full well the fate in store for him and his. One false step, 
and the unspeakable doom which, not two generations afterward, be^ 
fell the Lutherans of Magdeburg, would have befallen every town 
from London to Carlisle. All knew the hazard, as they prayed that 
day, and many a day before and after, throughout England and the 
Netherlands. And none knew it better than She who was the guiding 
spirit of that devoted land, and the especial mark of the invaders’ fury; 
and who, by some Divine inspiration (as men then not unwisely held) , 
devised herself the daring stroke which was to anticipate the coming 
blow. 

But where is Amyas Leigh all this while? Day after day he has 
been seeking the St a. Catharina in the thickest of the press, and cannot 
come at her, cannot even hear of her: one moment he dreads that she 
has sunk by night, and balked him of his prey; the next, that she has 
repaired her damages, and will escape him after all. He is moody, 
discontented, restless, even (for the first time in his life) peevish with 
his men. He can talk of nothing but Don Guzman; he can find no 
better employment, at every spare moment, than taking his sword out 
of the sheath, and handling it, fondling it, talking to it even, bidding it 
not to fail him in the day of vengeance. At last, he has sent to Squire, 
the armorer, for a whetstone, and, half ashamed of his own folly, whets 
and polishes it in bye-corners, muttering to himself. That one fixed 
thought of selfish vengeance has possessed his whole mind; he forgets 
England’s present need, her past triumph, his own safety, everything 
but his brother’s blood. And yet this is the day for which he has been 
longing ever since he brought home that magic horn as a fifteen years’ 
boy; the day when he should find himself face to face with an invader, 
and that invader Antichrist himself. He has believed for years with 
Drake, Hawkins, Grenvile, and Raleigh, that he was called and sent 
into the world only to fight the Spaniard: and he is fighting him now, 
in such a cause, for such a stake, within such battle-lists, as he will 


572 


Westward Ho ! 

never see again : and yet he is not content ; and while throughout that 
gallant fleet, whole crews are receiving the Communion side by side, 
and rising with cheerful faces to shake hands, and to rejoice that they 
are sharers in Britain’s Salamis, Amyas turns away from the holy 
elements. 

“ I cannot communicate. Sir John. Charity with all men? I hate, 
if ever man hated on earth.” 

“ You hate the Lord’s foes only, Captain Leigh.” 

“ No, Jack, I hate my own as well.” 

“ But no one in the fleet, sir? ” 

“ Don’t try to put me off with the same Jesuit’s quibble which that 
false knave Parson Fletcher invented for one of Doughty’s men, to 
drug his conscience withal when he was plotting against his own ad- 
miral. No, Jack, I hate one of whom you know; and somehow that 
hatred of him keeps me from loving any human being. I am in love 
and charity with no man, Sir John Brimblecombe — not even with you! 
Go your ways, in God’s name, sir! and leave me and the devil alone 
together, or you’ll find my words are true.” 

Jack departed with a sigh, and while the crew were receiving the 
Communion on deck, Amyas sate below in the cabin sharpening his 
sword, and after it, called for a boat and went on board Drake’s ship 
to ask news of the Sta. Catliarina, and listened scowling to the loud 
chants and tinkling bells, which came across the water from the Span- 
ish fleet. At last, Drake was summoned by the Lord Admiral, and 
returned with a secret commission, which ought to bear fruit that 
night ; and Amyas, who had gone with him, helped him till nightfall, 
and then returned to his own ship as Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, to the 
joy and glory of every soul on board, except his moody self. 

So there, the livelong Sabbath-day, before the little high- walled 
town and the long range of yellow sand-hills, lie those two mighty 
armaments, scowling at each other, hardly out of gunshot. Messenger 
after messenger is hurrying toward Bruges to the Duke of Parma, for 
light craft which can follow these nimble English somewhat better 
than their own floating castles ; and, above all, entreating him to put to 
sea at once with all his force. The duke is not with his forces at Dun- 
kirk, but on the future field of Waterloo, paying his devotions to St. 
Mary of Halle in Hainault, in order to make all sure in his Pantheon, 
and already sees in visions of the night that gentle-souled and pure- 
lipped saint, Cardinal Allen, placing the crown of England on his 
head. He returns for answer ; first, that his victual is not ready ; next. 






* 



f 















©CIK146152 







The ships are fired and in a moment more the heaven is red with glare 




573 


The Greet Arm&d& 

that his Dutch sailors, who have been kept at their post for many a 
week at the sword's point, have run away like water; and thirdly, that 
over and above all, he cannot come, so “ strangely provided of great 
ordnance and musqueteers ” are those five-and-thirty Dutch ships, in 
which round-sterned and stubborn-hearted heretics watch, like terriers 
at a rat’s hole, the entrance of Nieuwport and Dunkirk. Having in- 
sured the private patronage of St. Mary of Halle, he will return to- 
morrow to make experience of its effects : but only hear across the flats 
of Dixmude the thunder of the fleets, and at Dunkirk the open curses 
of his officers. For while he has been praying, and nothing more, the 
English have been praying, and something more; and all that is left 
for the Prince of Parma is to hang a few purveyors, as peace offerings 
to his sulking army, and then “ chafe,” as Drake says of him, “ like a 
bear robbed of her whelps.” 

For Lord Henry Seymour has brought Lord Howard a letter of 
command from Elizabeth’s self; and Drake has been carrying it out so 
busily all that Sunday long, that by two o’clock on the Monday morn- 
ing, eight fire-ships “ besmeared with wild-fire, brimstone, pitch, and 
resin, and all their ordnance charged with bullets and with stones,” 
are stealing down the wind straight for the Spanish fleet, guided by 
two valiant men of Devon, Young and Prowse. (Let their names live 
long in the land!) The ships are fired, the men of Devon steal back, 
and in a moment more, the heaven is red with glare from Dover Cliffs 
to Gravelines Tower; and weary-hearted Belgian boors far away in- 
land, plundered and dragooned for many a hideous year, leap from 
their beds, and fancy (and not so far wrongly either) that the day of 
judgment is come at last, to end their woes, and hurl down vengeance 
on their tyrants. 

And then breaks forth one of those disgraceful panics, which so 
often follow overweening presumption; and shrieks, oaths, prayers and 
reproaches, make night hideous. There are those too on board who 
recollect well enough Jenebelli’s fire-ships at Antwerp three years 
before, and the wreck which they made of Parma’s bridge across the 
Scheldt. If these should be like them! And cutting all cables, hoist- 
ing any sails, the Invincible Armada goes lumbering wildly out to sea, 
every ship foul of her neighbor. 

The largest of the four galliasses loses her rudder, and drifts help- 
less to and fro, hindering and confusing. The duke, having (so 
the Spaniards say) weighed his anchor deliberately instead of leaving 
it behind him, runs in again after a while, and fires a signal for return: 


574 


Westward Ho I 

but his truant sheep are deaf to the shepherd’s pipe, and swearing and 
praying by turns, he runs up Channel toward Gravelines picking up 
stragglers on his way, who are struggling as they best can among the 
fiats and shallows: but Drake and Fenner have arrived as soon as he. 
When Monday’s sun rises on the quaint old castle and muddy dykes 
of Gravelines town, the thunder of the cannon recommences, and is not 
hushed till night. Drake can hang coolly enough in the rear to plun- 
der when he thinks fit; but when the battle needs it, none can fight 
more fiercely, among the foremost; and there is need now, if ever. 
That Armada must never be allowed to re-form. If it does, its left 
wing may yet keep the English at bay, while its right drives oft* the 
blockading Hollanders from Dunkirk port, and sets Parma and his 
flotilla free to join them, and to sail in doubled strength across to the 
mouth of Thames. 

So Drake has weighed anchor, and away up Channel with all his 
squadron, the moment that he saw the Spanish fleet come up ; and with 
him Fenner, burning to redeem the honor which, indeed, he had never 
lost; and ere Fenton, Beeston, Crosse, Ryman, and Lord Southwell 
can join them, the Devon ships have been worrying the Spaniards for 
two full hours into confusion worse confounded. 

But what is that heavy firing behind them? Alas for the great 
galliasse ! She lies like a huge stranded whale, upon the sands where 
now stands Calais pier; and Amyas Preston, the future hero of La 
Guayra, is pounding her into submission, while a fleet of hoys and 
drumblers look on and help, as jackals might the lion. 

Soon, on the southwest horizon, loom up larger and larger two 
mighty ships, and behind them sail on sail. As they near, a shout 
greets the Triumph and the Bear ; and on and in the Lord High Ad- 
miral glides stately into the thickest of the fight. 

True, we have still but some three-and-twenty ships which can cope 
at all with some ninety of the Spaniards: but we have dash, and daring, 
and the inspiration of utter need. Now, or never, must the mighty 
struggle be ended. We worried them off Portland: we must rend 
them in pieces now; and in rushes ship after ship, to smash her broad- 
sides through and through the wooden castles, “ sometimes not a pike’s 
length asunder,” and then out again to reload, and give place mean- 
while to another. The smaller are fighting with all sails set; the few 
larger, who, once in, are careless about coming out again, fight with 
topsails loose, and their main and foreyards close down on deck, to 
prevent being boarded. The dukes, Oquenda, and Recalde, having 


575 


The Great Armada 

with much ado got clear of the shallows, bear the brunt of the fight to 
seaward: but in vain. The day goes against them more and more as it 
runs on. Seymour and Winter have battered the great San Philip 
into a wreck; her masts are gone by the board; Pimentelli, in the San 
Matthew , comes up to take the mastiffs off the fainting bull, and finds 
them fasten on him instead; but the Evangelist , though smaller, is 
stouter than the Deacon, and of all the shot poured into him, not 
twenty “ lackt him thorough.” His masts are tottering; but sink or 
strike he will not. 

“ Go ahead, and pound his tough hide, Leigh,” roars Drake off the 
poop of his ship, while he hammers away at one of the great galliasses. 
“ What right has he to keep us all waiting? ” 

Amy as slips in as best he can between Drake and Winter; as he 
passes, he shouts to his ancient enemy, — 

“We are with you, sir; all friends to-day!” and slipping round 
Winter’s bows, he pours his broadside into those of the San Matthew, 
and then glides on, to reload: but not to return. For not a pistol-shot 
to leeward, worried by three or four small craft, lies an immense gal- 
leon; and on her poop — can he believe his eyes for joy? — the maiden 
and the wheel which he has sought so long! 

“ There he is ! ” shouts Amyas, springing to the starboard side of 
the ship. The men, too, have already caught sight of that hated sign; 
a cheer of fury bursts from every throat. 

“ Steady, men!” says Amyas in a suppressed voice. “ Not a shot! 
Reload, and be ready; I must speak with him first: ” and silent as 
the grave, amid the infernal din, the Vengeance glides up to the 
Spaniard’s quarter. 

“Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto!” shouts 
Amyas, from the mizzen rigging, loud and clear amid the roar. 

He has not called in vain. Fearless and graceful as ever, the tall, 
mail-clad figure of his foe leaps up upon the poop-railing, twenty feet 
above Amyas’s head, and shouts through his visor, — 

“At your service, sir! whosoever you may be.” 

A dozen muskets and arrows are leveled at him: but Amyas frowns 
them down. “No man strikes him but I. Spare him, if you kill 
every other soul on board. Don Guzman ! I am Captain Sir Amyas 
Leigh: I proclaim you a traitor and a ravisher, and challenge you once 
more to single combat, when and where you will.” 

“ You are welcome to come on board me, sir,” answers the Spaniard 
in a clear, quiet tone: “ bringing with you this answer, that you lie in 


576 


Westward Ho t 

your throat; ” and lingering a moment out of bravado, to arrange his 
scarf, he steps slowly down again behind the bulwarks. 

“ Coward! ” shouts Amyas at the top of his voice. 

The Spaniard reappears instantly. “ Why that name, Senor, of 
all others ? ” asks he in a cool, stern voice. 

44 Because we call men cowards in England who leave their wives 
to be burned alive by priests.” 

The moment the words had passed Amyas’s lips, he felt that they 
were cruel and unjust. But it was too late to recall them. The 
Spaniard started; clutched his sword-hilt: and then hissed back 
through his closed visor, — 

44 For that word, sirrah, you hang at my yard-arm, if Saint Mary 
gives me grace.” 

44 See that your halter be a silken one, then,” laughed Amyas, 44 for 
I am just dubbed knight.” And he stepped down, as a storm of 
bullets rang through the rigging round his head; the Spaniards are 
not as punctilious as he. 

44 Fire ! ” His ordnance crash through the stern-works of the 
Spaniard; and then he sails onward, while her balls go humming 
harmlessly through his rigging. 

Half an hour has passed of wild noise and fury; three times has the 
Vengeance , as a dolphin might, sailed clean round and round the 
Sta. Cafliarina, pouring in broadside after broadside, till the guns are 
leaping to the deck-beams with their own heat, and the Spaniard’s 
sides are slit and spotted in a hundred places. And yet so high has 
been his fire in return, and so strong the deck defenses of the Venge- 
ance, that a few spars broken, and two or three men wounded by 
musketry, are all her loss. But still the Spaniard endures, magnifi- 
cent as ever; it is the battle of the thresher and the whale; the end is 
certain, but the work is long. 

44 Can I help you, Captain Leigh?” asked Lord Henry Seymour, 
as he passes within oar’s length of him, to attack a ship a-head. 44 The 
San Matthew has had his dinner, and is gone on to Medina to ask for 
a digestive to it.” 

44 1 thank your Lordship: but this is my private quarrel, of which 
I spoke. But if your Lordship could lend me powder ” 

44 Would that I could! But so, I fear, says every other gentle- 
man in the fleet.” 

A puff of wind clears away the sulphurous veil for a moment; the 
sea is clear of ships toward the land; the Spanish fleet are moving 


The Great* Armada 577 

again up Channel, Medina bringing up the rear; only some two miles 
to their right hand, the vast hull of the San Philip is drifting up the 
shore with the tide, and somewhat nearer, the San Matthew is hard at 
work at her pumps. They can see the white stream of water pouring 
down her side. 

“ Go in, my Lord, and have the pair,” shouts Amyas. 

“ No, sir! Forward is a Seymour’s cry. We will leave them to 
pay the Flushingers’ expenses.” And on went Lord Henry, and, on 
shore, went the San Philip at Ostend, to be plundered by the Flush- 
ingers; while the San Matthew, whose captain, “ on a hault courage,” 
had refused to save himself and his gentlemen on board Medina’s 
ship, went blundering miserably into the hungry mouths of Captain 
Peter Vanderduess and four other valiant Dutchmen, who, like 
prudent men of Holland, contrived to keep the galleon afloat till they 
had emptied her, and then “ hung up her banner in the great church of 
Leyden, being of such a length that, being fastened to the roof, it 
reached unto the very ground.” 

But in the meanwhile, long ere the sun had set, comes down the 
darkness of the thunder-storm, attracted, as to a volcano’s mouth, to 
that vast mass of sulphur-smoke which cloaks the sea for many a 
mile; and heaven’s artillery above makes answer to man’s below. 
But still, through smoke and rain, Amyas clings to his prey. She too 
has seen the northward movement of the Spanish fleet, and sets her 
topsails; Amyas calls to the men to fire high, and cripple her rigging: 
but in vain: for three or four belated galleys, having forced their way 
at last over the shallows, come flashing and sputtering up to the com- 
batants, and take his fire off the galleon. Amyas grinds his teeth, and 
would fain hustle into the thick of the press once more, in spite of the 
galleys’ beaks. 

“ Most heroical Captain,” says Cary, pulling a long face; “ if we 
do, we are stove and sunk in five minutes; not to mention that Yeo says 
he has not twenty rounds of great cartridge left.” 

So, surely and silent, the Vengeance sheers off, but keeps as near as 
she can to the little squadron, all through the night of rain and thunder 
which follows. Next morning the sun rises on a clear sky, with a 
strong west-northwest breeze, and all hearts are asking what the day 
will bring forth. 

They are long past Dunkirk now; the German Ocean is opening 
before them. The Spaniards, sorely battered, and lessened in num- 
bers, have, during the night, regained some sort of order. The Eng- 


578 


Westward Ho ! 

lish hang on their skirts a mile or two behind. They have no ammuni- 
tion, and must wait for more. To Amyas’s great disgust, the Sta. 
Catharina has rejoined her fellows during the night. 

“ Never mind,” says Cary; “ she can neither dive nor fly, and as 
long as she is above water, we — What is the admiral about? ” 

He is signaling Lord Henry Seymour and his squadron. Soon 
they tack, and come down the wind for the coast of Flanders. Parma 
must be blockaded still; and the Hollanders are likely to be too busy 
with their plunder to do it effectually. Suddenly there is a stir in the 
Spanish fleet. Medina and the rearmost ships turn upon the English. 
What can it mean? Will they offer battle once more? If so, it were 
best to get out of their way, for we have nothing wherewith to fight 
them. So the English lie close to the wind. They will let them pass, 
and return to their old tactic of following and harassing. 

“ Good-bye to Seymour,” says Cary, “ if he is caught between them 
and Parma’s flotilla. They are going to Dunkirk.” 

“ Impossible ! They will not have water enough to reach his light 
craft. Here comes a big ship right upon us ! Give him all you have 
left, lads ; and if he will fight us, lay him alongside, and die boarding.” 

They gave him what they had, and hulled him with every shot ; but 
his huge side stood silent as the grave. He had not wherewithal to 
return the compliment. 

“As I live, he is cutting loose the foot of his mainsail! the villain 
means to run.” 

“ There go the rest of them! Victoria! ” shouted Cary, as one after 
another, every Spaniard set all the sail he could. 

There was silence for a few minutes throughout the English fleet; 
and then cheer upon cheer of triumph rent the skies. It was over! 
The Spaniard had refused battle, and thinking only of safety, was 
pressing downward toward the Straits again. The Invincible Armada 
had cast away its name, and England was saved. 

“ But he will never get there, sir,” said old Yeo, who had come 
upon deck to murmur his Nunc Domine, and gaze upon that sight 
beyond all human faith or hope: “ Never, never will he weather the 
Flanders shore, against such a breeze as is coming up. Look to the 
eye of the wind, sir, and see how the Lord is fighting for His people! ” 

Yes, down it came, fresher and stiff er every minute out of the gray 
northwest, as it does so often after a thunder-storm; and the sea 
began to rise high and white under the “ Claro Aquilone,” till the 
Spaniards were fain to take in all spare canvas, and lie-to as best they 


The Greet Armada 579 

could, while the English fleet, lying-to also, awaited an event which 
was in God’s hands and not in theirs. 

They will be all ashore on Zealand before the afternoon,” mur- 
mured Amyas; and I have lost my labor! Oh, for powder, powder, 
powder ! to go in and finish it at once ! ” 

Oh, sir, said Yeo, don t murmur against the Lord in the very 
da y His mercies. It is hard, to be sure; but His will be done.” 

“ Could we not borrow powder from Drake there? ” 

“ Look at the sea, sir! ” 

And, indeed, the sea was far too rough for any such attempt. The 
Spaniards neared and neared the fatal dunes, which fringed the shore 
for many a dreary mile ; and Amyas had to wait weary hours, growling 
like a dog who has had the bone snatched out of his mouth, till the day 
wore on; when, behold, the wind began to fall as rapidly as it had risen. 
A savage joy rose in Amyas’s heart. 

They are safe! safe for us! Who will go and beg us powder? A 
cartridge here and a cartridge there? — anything to set to work again! ” 
Cary volunteered, and returned in a couple of hours with some 
quantity: but he was on board again only just in time, for the south- 
wester had recovered the mastery of the skies, and Spaniards and 
English were moving away; but this time northward. Whither now? 
To Scotland? Amyas knew not, and cared not, provided he was in 
the company of Don Guzman de Soto. 

The Armada was defeated, and England saved. But such great 
undertakings seldom end in one grand melodramatic explosion of fire- 
works, through which the devil arises in full roar to drag Dr. Faustus 
forever into the flaming pit. On the contrary, the devil stands by his 
servants to the last, and tries to bring off his shattered forces with 
drums beating and colors flying; and, if possible, to lull his enemies 
into supposing that the fight is ended, long before it really is half 
over. All which the good Lord Howard of Effingham knew well, and 
knew, too, that Medina had one last card to play, and that was the 
filial affection of that dutiful and chivalrous son, James of Scotland. 
True, he had promised faith to Elizabeth: but that was no reason why 
he should keep it. He had been hankering and dabbling after Spain 
for years past, for its absolutism was dear to his inmost soul; and 
Queen Elizabeth had had to warn him, scold him, call him a liar, for so 
doing; so the Armada might still find shelter and provision in the 
Firth of Forth. But whether Lord Howard knew or not, Medina did 
not know, that Elizabeth had played her card cunningly, in the shape 


580 


Westward Ho ! 

of one of those appeals to the purse, which, to James’s dying day, over- 
weighed all others save appeals to his vanity. “ The title of a duke- 
dom in England, a yearly pension of £5000, a guard at the Queen’s 
charge, and other matters” (probably more hounds and deer), had 
steeled the heart of the King of Scots, and sealed the Firth of Forth. 
Nevertheless, as I say, Lord Howard, like the rest of Elizabeth’s 
heroes, trusted James just as much as James trusted others; and 
therefore thought good to escort the Armada until it was safely past 
the domains of that most chivalrous and truthful Solomon. But on 
the 4th of August, his fears, such as they were, were laid to rest. 
The Spaniards left the Scottish coast and sailed away for Norway; 
and the game was played out, and the end was come, as the end of 
such matters generally come, by gradual decay, petty disaster, and 
mistake ; till the snow-mountain, instead of being blown tragically and 
heroically to atoms, melts helplessly and pitiably away. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

How Anyas (brew his sword into (be sea. 

‘ ‘ Full fathom deep thy father lies ; 

Of his bones are corals made ; 

Those are pearls which were his eyes ; 

Nothing of him that doth fade, 

But doth suffer a sea-change 

Into something rich and strange ; 

Fairies hourly ring his knell, 

Hark! I hear them. Ding dong bell. ,, 

The Tempest. 

Yes, it is over; and the great Armada is vanquished. It is lulled for 
a while, the everlasting war which is in heaven, the battle of Iran and 
Turan, of the children of light and of darkness, of Michael and his 
angels against Satan and his fiends; the battle which slowly and sel- 
dom, once in the course of many centuries, culminates and ripens into 
a day of judgment, and becomes palpable and incarnate; no longer a 
mere spiritual fight, but one of flesh and blood, wherein simple men 
may choose their sides without mistake, and help God’s cause not 
merely with prayer and pen, but with sharp shot and cold steel. A 
day of judgment has come, which has divided the light from the dark- 
ness, and the sheep from the goats, and tried each man’s work by the 
fire; and, behold, the devil’s work, like its maker, is proved to have 
been, as always, a lie and a sham, and a windy boast, a bladder which 
collapses at the merest pin-prick. Byzantine empires, Spanish 
Armadas, triple-crowned Papacies, Russian Despotisms, this is the 
way of them, and will be to the end of the world. One brave blow at 
the big bullying phantom, and it vanishes in sulphur-stench; while the 
children of Israel, as of old, see the Egyptians dead on the seashore, 
they scarce know how, save that God has done it, — and sing the song 
of Moses and of the Lamb. 

And now, from England and the Netherlands, from Germany and 
Geneva, and those poor vaudois shepherd-saints, whose bones for gen- 
erations past 

4 'Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;” 


582 


Westward. Ho ! 

to be, indeed, the seed of the Church, and a germ of new life, liberty, 
and civilization, even in these very days returning good for evil to 
that Piedmont which has hunted them down like the partridges on the 
mountains; — from all of Europe, from all of mankind, I had almost 
said, in which lay the seed of future virtue and greatness, of the 
destinies of the new-discovered world, and the triumphs of the coming 
age of science, arose a shout of holy joy, such as the world had not 
heard for many a weary and bloody century; a shout which was the 
prophetic birth-paean of North America, Australia, New Zealand, the 
Pacific Islands, of free commerce and free colonization over the whole 
earth. 

“ There was in England, by the commandment of her Majesty,” 
says Van Meteran; “and likewise in the United Provinces, by the 
direction of the States, a solemn festival day publicly appointed, 
wherein all persons were solemnly enjoined to resort unto y e Church, 
and there to render thanks and praises unto God, and y e preachers 
were commanded to exhort y e people thereunto. The aforesaid 
solemnity was observed upon the 29th of November; which day was 
wholly spent in fasting, prayer, and giving of thanks. 

“ Likewise the Queen’s Majesty herself, imitating y e ancient 
Romans, rode into London in Triumph, in regard of her own and her 
subjects’ glorious deliverance. For being attended upon very 
solemnly by all y e principal Estates and officers of her Realm, she was 
carried through her said City of London in a triumphant Chariot, and 
in robes of triumph, from her Palace unto y e said Cathedral Church of 
St. Paul, out of y e which y e Ensigns and Colors of y e vanquished 
Spaniards hung displayed. And all y e Citizens of London, in their 
liveries, stood on either side y e street, by their several Companies, with 
their ensigns and banners, and the streets were hanged on both sides 
with blue Cloth, which, together with y e aforesaid banners, yielded a 
very stately and gallant prospect. Her Majesty being entered into 
y e Church together with her Clergy and Nobles, gave thanks unto God, 
and caused a public Sermon to be preached before her at Paul’s Cross; 
wherein none other argument was handled, but that praise, honor, and 
glory might be rendered unto God, and that God’s Name might be 
extolled by thanksgiving. And with her own princely voice she most 
Christianly exhorted y e people to do y e same; whereunto y e people, 
with a loud acclamation, wished her a most long and happy life to 
y e confusion of her foes.” 

Yes, as the medals struck on the occasion said, “ It came, it saw, and 


583 


How Am^as threw his sword 

it fled! ” And whither? Away and northward, like a herd of fright- 
ened deer, past the Orkneys and Shetlands, catching up a few hapless 
fishermen as guides; past the coast of Norway, there, too, refused 
water and food by the brave descendants of the Vikings; and on north- 
ward ever toward the lonely Faroes, and the everlasting dawn which 
heralds round the Pole the midnight sun. 

Their water is failing; the cattle must go overboard; and the wild 
northern sea echoes to the shrieks of drowning horses. They must 
homeward at least, somehow, each as best he can. Let them meet again 
at Cape Finisterre, if indeed they ever meet. Medina Sidonia, with 
some five-and-twenty of the soundest and best victualed ships, will 
lead the way, and leave the rest to their fate. He is soon out of 
sight; and forty more, the only remnant of that mighty host, come 
wandering wearily behind, hoping to make the southwest coast of 
Ireland, and have help, or, at least, fresh water there, from their fellow 
Romanists. Alas for them! — 

* ‘ Make Thou their way dark and slippery, 

And follow them up ever with Thy storm.” 

For now comes up from the Atlantic, gale on gale; and few of that 
hapless remnant reached the shores of Spain. 

And where are Amyas and the Vengeance all this while? 

At the fifty-seventh degree of latitude, the English fleet, finding 
themselves growing short of provision, and having been long since out 
of powder and ball, turn southward toward home, “ thinking it best 
to leave the Spaniard to those uncouth and boisterous northern seas.” 
A few pinnaces are still sent onward to watch their course: and the 
English fleet, caught in the same storms which scattered the Spaniards, 
“ with great danger and industry reach Harwich port, and there pro- 
vide themselves of victuals and ammunition,” in case the Spaniard 
should return: but there is no need for that caution. Parma, indeed, 
who cannot believe that the idol at Halle, after all his compliments 
to it, will play him so scurvy a trick, will watch for weeks on Dunkirk 
dunes, hoping against hope for the Armada’s return, casting anchors, 
and spinning rigging to repair their losses. 

“But lang lang may his ladies sit, 

With their fans intill their hand, 

Before they see Sir Patrick Spens 
Come sailing to the land.” 


584 


Westward Ho S 

The Armada is away on the other side of Scotland, and Amyas is 
following in its wake. 

For when the Lord High Admiral determined to return, Amyas 
asked leave to follow the Spaniard; and asked, too, of Sir John 
Hawkins, who happened to be at hand, such ammunition and provision 
as could be afforded him, promising to repay the same like an honest 
man, out of his plunder if he lived, out of his estate if he died ; lodging 
for that purpose bills in the hands of Sir John, who, as a man of busi- 
ness, took them, and put them in his pocket among the thimbles, string, 
and tobacco; after which Amyas, calling his men together, reminded 
them once more of the story of the Rose of Torridge and Don Guzman 
de Soto, and then asked, — 

“ Men of Bideford, will you follow me? There will be plunder for 
those who love plunder; revenge for those who love revenge; and for 
all of us (for we all love honor) the honor of having never left the 
chase as long as there was a Spanish flag in English seas.” 

And every soul on board replied that they would follow Sir Amyas 
Leigh around the world. 

There is no need for me to detail every incident of that long and 
weary chase; how they found the St a. Cathanna, attacked her, and had 
to sheer off, she being rescued by the rest; how when Medina’s squad- 
ron left the crippled ships behind, they were all but taken or sunk, by 
thrusting into the midst of the Spanish fleet to prevent her escaping 
with Medina ; how they crippled her, so that she could not beat to wind- 
ward out into the ocean, but was fain to run south, past the Orkneys, 
and down through the Minch, between Cape Wrath and Lewis; how 
the younger hands were ready to mutiny, because Amyas, in his stub- 
born haste, ran past two or three noble prizes which were all but dis- 
abled, among others one of the great galliasses, and the two great 
Venetians, La Ratta and La Belanzara — which were afterward, with 
more than thirty other vessels, wrecked on the west coast of Ireland; 
how he got fresh water, in spite of certain “ Hebridean Scots ” of 
Skye, who, after reviling him in an unknown tongue, fought with him 
a while, and then embraced him and his men with howls of affection, 
and were not much more decently clad, nor more civilized, than his 
old friends of California; how he pacified his men by letting them pick 
the bones of a great Venetian which was going on shore upon Islay 
(by which they got booty enough to repay them for the whole voyage) , 
and offended them again by refusing to land and plunder two great 
Spanish wrecks on the Mull of Cantire (whose crews, by-the-by, 


585 


How Am^&s threw bis sword 

James tried to smuggle off secretly into Spain in ships of his own, 
wishing to play, as usual, both sides of the game at once; but the 
Spaniards were stopped at Yarmouth till the council’s pleasure was 
known — which was, of course, to let the poor wretches go on their 
way, and be hanged elsewhere) ; how they passed a strange island, half 
black, half white, which the wild people called Raghery, but Cary 
christened it “ the drowned magpie”; how the Sta. Caiharina was 
near lost on the Isle of Man, and then put into Castleton (where the 
Manx-men slew a whole boat’s-crew with their arrows), and then put 
out again, when Amyas fought with her a whole day, and shot away 
her mainyard; how the Spaniard blundered down the coast of Wales, 
not knowing whither he went ; how they were both nearly lost on Holy- 
head, and again on Bardsey Island; how they got on a lee shore in 
Cardigan Bay, before a heavy westerly gale, and the Sta. Caiharina 
ran aground on Sarn David, one of those strange subaqueous pebble- 
dykes which are said to be the remnants of the lost land of Gwalior, 
destroyed by the carelessness of Prince Seithenin the drunkard, at 
whose name each loyal Welshman spits; how she got off again at the 
rising of the tide, and fought with Amyas a fourth time; how the wind 
changed, and she got round St. David’s Head; — these, and many more 
moving incidents of this eventful voyage, I must pass over without 
details, and go on to the end; for it is time that the end should come. 

It was now the sixteenth day of the chase. They had seen, the 
evening before, St. David’s Head, and then the Welsh coast round 
Milford Haven, looming out black and sharp before the blaze of the 
inland thunder-storm; and it had lightened all round them during the 
fore part of the night, upon a light southwestern breeze. 

In vain they had strained their eyes through the darkness, to catch, 
by the fitful glare of the flashes, the tall masts of the Spaniard. Of 
one thing at least they were certain, that with the wind as it was, she 
could not have gone far to the westward; and to attempt to pass them 
again, and go northward, was more than she dare do. She was prob- 
ably lying-to ahead of them, perhaps between them and the land; and 
when, a little after midnight, the wind chopped up to the west, and 
blew stiffly till daybreak, they felt sure that, unless she had attempted 
the desperate expedient of running past them, they had her safe in the 
mouth of the Bristol Channel. Slowly and wearily broke the dawn, 
on such a day as often follows heavy thunder; a sunless, drizzly day, 
roofed with low dingy cloud, barred, and netted, and festooned with 
black, a sign that the storm is only taking breath a while before it 


586 


Westward Ho ! 

bursts again; while all the narrow horizon is dim and spongy with 
vapor drifting before a chilly breeze. As the day went on, the breeze 
died down, and the sea fell to a long glassy foam-flecked roll, while 
overhead brooded the inky sky, and round them the leaden mist shut 
out alike the shore and the chase. 

Amyas paced the sloppy deck fretfully and fiercely. He knew that 
the Spaniard could not escape; but he cursed every moment which 
lingered between him and that one great revenge which blackened all 
his soul. The men sate sulkily about the deck, and whistled for a 
wind; the sails flapped idly against the masts; and the ship rolled in 
the long troughs of the sea, till her yard-arms almost dipped right and 
left. 

“ Take care of those guns. You will have something loose next,” 
growled Amyas. 

“ We will take care of the guns, if the Lord will take care of the 
wind,” said Yeo. 

“We shall have plenty before night,” said Cary, “ and thunder 
too.” 

“ So much the better,” said Amyas. “ It may roar till it splits the 
heavens, if it does but let me get my work done.” 

“ He’s not far off, I warrant,” said Cary. “ One lift of the cloud, 
and we should see him.” 

“ To windward of us, as likely as not,” said Amyas. “ The devil 
fights for him, I believe. To have been on his heels sixteen days, and 
not sent this through him yet ! ” And he shook his sword impatiently. 

So the morning wore away, without a sign of living thing, not even 
a passing gull ; and the black melancholy of the heaven reflected itself 
in the black melancholy of Amyas. Was he to lose his prey after 
all? The thought made him shudder with rage and disappointment. 
It was intolerable. Anything but that. 

“No, God!” he cried, “let me but once feel this in his accursed 
heart, and then — strike me dead, if Thou wilt ! ” 

“ The Lord have mercy on us,” cried John Brimblecombe. “ What 
have you said? ” 

“ What is that to you, sir? There, they are piping to dinner. Go 
down. I shall not come.” 

And Jack went down, and talked in a half-terrified whisper of 
Amyas’s ominous words. 

All thought that they portended some bad luck, except old Yeo. 

“Well, Sir John,” said he, “ and why not? What better can the 


587 


How Amyas threw his sword 

Lord do for a man than take him home when he had done his work? 
Our captain is wilful and spiteful, and must needs kill his man him- 
self; while for me, I don’t care how the Don goes, provided he does 
go. I owe him no grudge, nor any man. May the Lord give him 
repentance, and forgive him all his sins: but if I could but see him once 
safe ashore, as he may be ere nightfall, on the Mortestone or the back 
of Lundy, I would say, ‘ Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart 
in peace,’ even if it were the lightning which was sent to fetch me.” 

“ But, Master Yeo, a sudden death? ” 

“And why not a sudden death, Sir John? Even fools long for a 
short life and a merry one, and shall not the Lord’s people pray for a 
short death and a merry one? Let it come as it will to old Yeo. 
Hark! there’s the Captain’s voice!” 

“ Here she is! ” thundered Amyas from the deck; and in an instant 
all were scrambling up the hatchway as fast as the frantic rolling of 
the ship would let them. 

Yes. There she was. The cloud had lifted suddenly, and to the 
south a ragged bore of blue sky let a long stream of sunshine down on 
her tall masts and stately hull, as she lay rolling some four or five 
miles to the eastward: but as for land, none was to be seen. 

“ There she is; and here we are,” said Cary; “ but where is here? 
and where is there? How is the tide, master? ” 

“ Running up Channel by this time, sir.” 

“ What matters the tide? ” said Amyas, devouring the ship with 
terrible and cold blue eyes. “ Can’t we get at her? ” 

“Not unless some one jumps out and shoves behind,” said Cary. 
“ I shall down again and finish that mackerel, if this roll has not 
chucked it to the cockroaches under the table.” 

“ Don’t jest, Will! I can’t stand it,” said Amyas, in a voice which 
quivered so much that Cary looked at him. His whole frame was 
trembling like an aspen. Cary took his arm, and drew him aside. 

“ Dear old lad,” said he, as they leaned over the bulwarks, “ what is 
this? You are not yourself, and have not been these four days.” 

“ No. I am not Amyas Leigh. I am my brother’s avenger. Do 
not reason with me, Will: when it is over I shall be merry old Amyas 
again,” and he passed his hand over his brow. 

“Do you believe,” said he, after a moment, “that men can be 
possessed by devils? ” 

“ The Bible says so.” 

“ If my cause were not a just one, I should fancy I had a devil 


588 


Westward Ho ! 

in me. My throat and heart are as hot as the pit. Would to God 
it were done, for done it must be! Now go.” 

Cary went away with a shudder. As he passed down the hatchway 
he looked back. Amyas had got the hone out of his pocket, and was 
whetting away again at his sword-edge, as if there was some dreadful 
doom on him, to whet, and whet forever. 

The weary day wore on. The strip of blue sky was curtained over 
again, and all was dismal as before, though it grew sultrier every mo- 
ment ; and now and then a distant mutter shook the air to westward. 
Nothing could be done to lessen the distance between the ships, for 
the Vengeance had had all her boats carried away but one, and that 
was much too small to tow her: and while the men went down again to 
finish dinner, Amyas worked on at his sword, looking up every now 
and then suddenly at the Spaniard, as if to satisfy himself that it was 
not a vision which had vanished. 

About two Yeo came up to him. 

“ He is ours safely now, sir. The tide has been running to the 
eastward for this two hours.” 

“ Safe as a fox in a trap. Satan himself cannot take him from us! ” 

“ But God may,” said Brimblecombe, simply. 

“ Who spoke to you, sir? If I thought that He — There comes the 
thunder at last ! ” 

And as he spoke an angry growl from the westward heavens seemed 
to answer his wild words, and rolled and loudened nearer and nearer, 
till right over their heads it crashed against some cloud-cliff far above, 
and all was still. 

Each man looked in the other’s face: but Amyas was unmoved. 

“ The storm is coming,” said he, “ and the wind in it. It will be 
Eastward-ho now, for once, my merry men all! ” 

“ Eastward-ho never brought us luck,” said Jack in an undertone 
to Cary. But by this time all eyes were turned to the northwest, 
where a black line along the horizon began to define the boundary of 
sea and air, till now all dim in mist. 

“ There comes the breeze.” 

‘And there the storm, too.” 

And with that strangely accelerating pace which some storms seem 
to possess, the thunder, which had been growling slow and seldom far 
away, now rang peal on peal along the cloudy floor above their heads. 

“ Here comes the breeze. Round with the yards, or we shall be 
taken aback.” 


589 


How Amy&s threw his sword 

The yards creaked round; the sea grew crisp around them; the hot 
air swept their cheeks, tightened every rope, filled every sail, bent her 
over. A cheer burst from the men as the helm went up, and they 
staggered away before the wind right down upon the Spaniard, who 
lay still becalmed. 

“ There is more behind, Amyas,” said Cary. “ Shall we not shorten 
sail a little? ” 

“ No. Hold on every stitch,” said Amyas. “ Give me the helm, 
man. Boatswain, pipe away to clear for fight.” 

It was done, and in ten minutes the men were all at quarters, while 
the thunder rolled louder and louder overhead, and the breeze fresh- 
ened fast. 

“ The dog has it now. There he goes! ” said Cary. 

“ Right before the wind. He has no liking to face us.” 

“ He is running into the jaws of destruction,” said Yeo. “An hour 
more will send him either right up the Channel, or smack on shore 
somewhere.” 

“ There! he has put his helm down. I wonder if he sees land? ” 

“ He is like a March hare beat out of his country,” said Cary, “ and 
don’t know whither to run next.” 

Cary was right. In ten minutes more the Spaniard fell off again, 
and went away dead down wind, while the V engeance gained on him 
fast. After two hours more, the four miles had diminished to one, 
while the lightning flashed nearer and nearer as the storm came up; 
and from the vast mouth of a black cloud-arch poured so fierce a 
breeze that Amyas yielded unwillingly to hints which were growing 
into open murmurs, and bade shorten sail. 

On they rushed with scarcely lessened speed, the black arch follow- 
ing fast, curtained by one flat gray sheet of pouring rain, before which 
the water was boiling in a long white line; while every moment, behind 
the watery veil, a keen blue spark leaped down into the sea, or darted 
zigzag through the rain. 

“We shall have it now, and with a vengeance; this will try your 
tackle, Master,” said Cary. 

The functionary answered with! a shrug, and turned up the collar 
of his rough frock, as the first drops flew stinging round his ears. An- 
other minute, and the squall burst full upon them in rain which cut 
like hail, — hail which lashed the sea into froth, and wind which whirled 
off the heads of the surges, and swept the waters into one white seeth- 
ing waste. And above them, and behind them, and before them, the 


590 


Westward Ho i 

lightning leaped and ran, dazzling and blinding, while the deep roar 
of the thunder was changed to sharp ear-piercing cracks. 

“ Get the arms and ammunition under cover, and then below with 
you all,” shouted Amyas from the helm. 

“And heat the pokers in the galley fire,” said Yeo, “ to be ready if 
the rain puts our linstocks out. I hope you’ll let me stay on deck, 
sir, in case ” 

“ I must have some one, and who better than you? Can you see 
the chase? ” 

No; she was wrapped in the gray whirlwind. She might be within 
half a mile of them, for aught they could have seen of her. 

And now Amyas and his old liegeman were alone. Neither spoke; 
each knew the other’s thoughts, and knew that they were his own. The 
squall blew fiercer and fiercer, the rain poured heavier and heavier. 
Where was the Spaniard? 

“ If he has laid-to, we may overshoot him, sir! ” 

“If he has tried to lay-to, he will not have a sail left in the bolt- 
ropes, or perhaps a mast on deck. I know the stiff-neckedness of 
those Spanish tubs. Hurrah! there he is, right on our larboard bow ! ” 

There she was indeed, two musket-shots’ off, staggering away with 
canvas split and flying. 

“ He has been trying to hull, sir, and caught a buffet,” said Yeo, 
rubbing his hands. “ What shall we do now? ” 

“ Range alongside, if it blow live imps and witches, and try our luck 
once more. Pah ! how this lightning dazzles ! ” 

On they swept, gaining fast on the Spaniard. 

“ Call the men up, and to quarters; the rain will be over in ten 
minutes.” 

Yeo ran forward to the gangway: and sprang back again, with a 
face white and wild — 

“ Land right ahead! Port your helm, sir! For the love of God, 
port your helm ! ” 

Amyas, with the strength of a bull, jammed the helm down, while 
Yeo shouted to the men below. 

She swung round. The masts bent like whips; crack went the 
fore-sail like a cannon. What matter? Within two hundred yards 
of them was the Spaniard; in front of her, and above her, a huge dark 
bank rose through the dense hail, and mingled with the clouds ; and at 
its foot, plainer every moment, pillars and spouts of leaping foam. 

“ What is it, Morte? Hartland? ” 

























t 


t 













I 













©CIK146153 



“Shame!” cried Amyas, hurling his sword far into the sea 




591 


How Am^as threw his sword 

It might be anything for thirty miles. 

“ Lundy !” said Yeo. “The south end! I see the head of the 
Shutter in the breakers! Hard a-port yet, and get her close-hauled 
as you can, and the Lord may have mercy on us still! Look at the 
Spaniard! ” 

Yes, look at the Spaniard! 

On their left hand, as they broached-to, the wall of granite sloped 
down from the clouds toward an isolated peak of rock, some two hun- 
dred feet in height. Then a hundred yards of roaring breaker upon a 
sunken shelf, across which the race of the tide poured like a cataract; 
then, amid a column of salt smoke, the Shutter, like a huge black fang, 
rose waiting for its prey; and between the Shutter and the land, the 
great galleon loomed dimly through the storm. 

He, too, had seen his danger, and tried to broach-to. But his 
clumsy mass refused to obey the helm; he struggled a moment, half 
hid in foam; fell away again, and rushed upon his doom. 

“ Lost! lost! lost! ” cried Amyas madly, and throwing up his hands, 
let go the tiller. Yeo caught it just in time. 

“ Sir! sir! What are you at? We shall clear the rock yet.” 

“ Yes! ” shouted Amyas in his frenzy; “ but he will not! ” 

Another minute. The galleon gave a sudden jar, and stopped. 
Then one long heave and bound, as if to free herself. And then her 
bows lighted clean upon the Shutter. 

An awful silence fell on every English soul. They heard not the 
roaring of wind and surge; they saw not the blinding flashes of the 
lightning: but they heard one long ear-piercing wail to every saint in 
heaven rise from five hundred human throats; they saw the mighty 
ship heel over from the wind, and sweep headlong down the cataract 
of the race, plunging her yards into the foam, and showing her whole 
black side even to her keel, till she rolled clean over, and vanished 
forever and ever. 

“ Shame!” cried Amyas, hurling his sword far into the sea, “ to 
lose my right, my right ! when it was in my very grasp ! Unmerciful ! ” 

A crack which rent the sky, and made the granite ring and quiver; 
a bright world of flame, and then a blank of utter darkness, against 
which stood out, glowing red-hot, every mast, and sail, and rock, and 
Salvation Yeo as he stood just in front of Amyas, the tiller in his 
hand. All red-hot, transfigured into fire; and behind, the black, 

black night. . * * 

******* 


592 Westward Ho ! 

A whisper, a rustling close beside him, and Brimblecombe’ s voice 
said softly, — 

“ Give him more wine, Will; his eyes are opening/’ 

“ Hey day? ” said Amy as faintly, “ not past the Shutter yet! How 
long she hangs in the wind! ” 

“ We are long past the Shutter, Sir Amyas,” said Brimblecombe. 

“Are you mad? Cannot I trust my own eyes? ” 

There was no answer for a while. 

“ We are past the Shutter, indeed,” said Cary very gently, “ and 
lying in the cove at Lundy.” 

“ Will you tell me that that is not the Shutter, and that the Devil’s- 
limekiln, and that the cliff — that villain Spaniard only gone — and that 
Yeo is not standing here by me, and Cary there forward, and — why, 
by-the-by, where are you, Jack Brimblecombe, who were talking to 
me this minute? ” 

“ Oh, Sir Amyas Leigh, dear Sir Amyas Leigh,” blubbered poor 
J ack, “ put out your hand, and feel where you are, and pray the Lord 
to forgive you for your wilfulness ! ” 

A great trembling fell upon Amyas Leigh; half fearfully he put 
out his hand ; he felt that he was in his hammock, with the deck beams 
close above his head. The vision which had been left upon his eye- 
balls vanished like a dream. 

“ What is this? I must be asleep? What has happened? Where 
ami?” 

“ In your cabin, Amyas,” said Cary. 

“ What? And where is Yeo? ” 

“ Yeo is gone where he longed to go, and as he longed to go. The 
same flash which struck you down, struck him dead.” 

“ Dead? Lightning? Any more hurt? I must go and see. 
Why, what is this? ” and Amyas passed his hand across his eyes. “ It 
is all dark — dark, as I live! ” And he passed his hand over his eyes 
again. 

There was another dead silence. Amyas broke it. 

“ Oh, God!” shrieked the great proud sea-captain. “ Oh, God, I 
am blind ! blind ! blind ! ” And writhing in his great horror, he called 
to Cary to kill him and put him out of his misery, and then wailed for 
his mother to come and help him, as if he had been a boy once more; 
while Brimblecombe and Cary, and the sailors who crowded round 
the cabin door, wept as if they too had been boys once more. 

Soon his fit of frenzy passed off, and he sank back exhausted. 


598 


How Amyas Ihrew his sword 

They lifted him into their remaining boat, rowed him ashore, car- 
ried him painfully up the hill to the old castle, and made a bed for 
him on the floor, in the very room in which Don Guzman and Rose 
Salterne had plighted their troth to each other, five wild years be- 
fore. 

Three miserable days were passed within that lonely tower. 
Amyas, utterly unnerved by the horror of his misfortune, and by the 
over-excitement of the last few weeks, was incessantly delirious; while 
Cary, and Brimblecombe, and the men, nursed him by turns, as sailors 
and wives only can nurse; and listened with awe to his piteous self- 
reproaches and entreaties to Heaven to remove that woe, which, as he 
shrieked again and again, was a just judgment on him for his wilful- 
ness and ferocity. The surgeon talked, of course, learnedly about 
melancholic humors, and his liver’s being “ adust by the over-pungency 
of the animal spirits,” and then fell back on the universal panacea of 
blood-letting, which he effected with fear and trembling during a short 
interval of prostration; encouraged by which he attempted to ad- 
minister a large bolus of aloes, was knocked down for his pains, and 
then thought it better to leave Nature to her own work. In the 
meanwhile, Cary had sent off one of the island skiffs to Clovelly, with 
letters to his father, and to Mrs. Leigh, entreating the latter to come 
off to the island: but the heavy westerly winds made that as impos- 
sible as it was to move Amyas on board, and the men had to do their 
best, and did it well enough. 

On the fourth day his raving ceased: but he was still too weak to be 
moved. Toward noon, however, he called for food, ate a little, and 
seemed revived. 

“ Will,” he said, after a while, “ this room is as stifling as it is dark. 
I feel as if I should be a sound man once more, if I could but get one 
snuff of the sea-breeze.” 

The surgeon shook his head at the notion of moving him: but Amyas 
was peremptory. 

“ I am captain still, Tom Surgeon, and will sail for the Indies, if 
I choose. Will Cary, Jack Brimblecombe, will you obey a blind 
general? ” 

“ What you will in reason,” said they both at once. 

“ Then lead me out, my masters, and over the down to the south end. 
To the point at the south end I must go; there is no other place will 
suit.” 

And he rose firmly to his feet, and held out his hands for theirs. 


594 


Westward Ho ! 

“ Let him have his humor,” whispered Cary. “ It may be the work- 
ing off of his madness.” 

“ This sudden strength is a note of fresh fever, Mr. Lieutenant,” 
said the surgeon, “ and the rules of the art prescribe rather a fresh 
blood-letting.” 

Amyas overheard the last word, and broke out, — 

“ Thou pig-sticking Philistine, wilt thou make sport with blind 
Samson? Come near me to let blood from my arm, and see if I do 
not let blood from thy coxcomb. Catch him, Will, and bring him 
me here ! ” 

The surgeon vanished as the blind giant made a step forward; and 
they set forth, Amyas walking slowly, but firmly, between his two 
friends. 

“ Whither? ” asked Cary. 

“ To the south end. The crag above the Devirs-limekiln. No 
other place will suit.” 

Jack gave a murmur, and half stopped, as a frightful suspicion 
crossed him. 

“ That is a dangerous place ! ” 

“ What of that? ” said Amyas, who caught his meaning in his tone. 
“ Dost think I am going to leap over cliff? I have not heart enough 
for that. On, lads, and set me safe among the rocks.” 

So slowly, and painfully, they went on, while Amyas murmured to 
himself, — 

“ No, no other place will suit; I can see all thence.” 

So on they went to the point, where the cyclopean wall of granite 
cliff which forms the western side of Lundy, ends sheer in a precipice 
of some three hundred feet, topped by a pile of snow-white rock, be- 
spangled with golden lichens. As they approached, a raven, who sat 
upon the topmost stone, black against the bright blue sky, flapped 
lazily away, and sank down the abysses of the cliff, as if he scented the 
corpses underneath the surge. Below them from the Gull-rock rose 
a thousand birds, and filled the air with sound; the choughs cackled, 
the hacklets wailed, the great blackbacks laughed querulous defiance 
at the intruders, and a single falcon, with an angry bark, dashed out 
from beneath their feet, and hung poised high aloft, watching the 
sea-fowl which swung slowly round and round below. 

It was a glorious sight upon a glorious day. To the northward the 
glens rushed down toward the cliff, crowned with gray crags, and 
carpeted with purple heather and green fern; and from their feet 


595 


How Amyas threw his sword 

stretched away to the westward the sapphire rollers of the vast At- 
lantic, crowned with a thousand crests of flying foam. On their left 
hand, some ten miles to the south, stood out against the sky the purple 
wall of Hartland cliffs, sinking lower and lower as they trended away 
to the southward along the lonely iron-bound shores of Cornwall, until 
they faded, dim and blue, into the blue horizon forty miles away. 

The sky was flecked with clouds, which rushed toward them fast 
upon the roaring southwest wind; and the warm ocean-breeze swept 
up the cliffs, and whistled through the heather-bells, and howled in 
cranny and in crag, 

“Till the pillars and clefts of the granite 
Rang like a God-swept lyre; ” 

while Amyas, a proud smile upon his lips, stood breasting that genial 
stream of airy wine with swelling nostrils and fast-heaving chest, and 
seemed to drink in life from every gust. All three were silent for a 
while; and Jack and Cary, gazing downward with delight upon the 
glory and the grandeur of the sight, forgot for a while that their com- 
panion saw it not. Yet when they started sadly, and looked into his 
face, did he not see it? So wide and eager were his eyes, so bright and 
calm his face, that they fancied for an instant that he was once more 
even as they. 

A deep sigh undeceived them. “ I know it is all here — the dear old 
sea, where I would live and die. And my eyes feel for it; feel for it — 
and cannot find it; never, never will find it again forever! God’s will 
be done ! ” 

“ Do you say that? ” asked Brimblecombe, eagerly. 

“ Why should I not? Why have I been raving in hell-fire for I 
know not how many days, but to find out that, John Brimblecombe, 
thou better man than I ? ” 

“ Not that last: but Amen! Amen! and the Lord has indeed had 
mercy upon thee! ” said Jack, through his honest tears. 

“Amen! ” said Amyas. “ Now set me where I can rest among the 
rocks without fear of falling — for life is sweet still, even without eyes, 
friends — and leave me to myself a while.” 

It was no easy matter to find a safe place; for from the foot of 
the crag the heathery turf slopes down all but upright, on one side to 
a cliff which overhangs a shoreless cove of deep dark sea, and on the 
other to an abyss even more hideous, where the solid rock has sunk 
away, and opened inland in the hillside a smooth-walled pit, some sixty 


596 


Westward Ho ! 

feet square and some hundred and fifty in depth, aptly known then as 
now, as the Devil’s-limekiln; the mouth of which, as old wives say, was 
once closed by the Shutter-rock itself, till the fiend in malice hurled 
it into the sea, to be a pest to mariners. A narrow and untrodden 
cavern at the bottom connects it with the outer sea; they could even 
then hear the mysterious thunder and gurgle of the surge in the sub- 
terranean adit, as it rolled huge boulders to and fro in darkness, and 
forced before it gusts of pent-up air. It was a spot to curdle weak 
blood, and to make weak heads reel: but all the fitter on that account 
for Amyas and his fancy. 

“ You can sit here as in an armchair,” said Cary, helping him down 
to one of those square natural seats so common in the granite tors. 

“ Good; now turn my face to the Shutter. Be sure and exact. So. 
Do I face it full?” 

“ Full,” said Cary. 

“ Then I need no eyes wherewith to see what is before me,” said he 
with a sad smile. “ I know every stone and every headland, and every 
wave too, I may say, far beyond aught that eye can reach. Now go, 
and leave me alone with God and with the dead ! ” 

They retired a little space and watched him. He never stirred for 
many minutes ; then leaned his elbows on his knees, and his head upon 
his hands, and so was still again. ITe remained so long thus that 
the pair became anxious, and went toward him. He was asleep, and 
breathing quick and heavily. 

“ He will take a fever,” said Brimblecombe, “ if he sleeps much 
longer with his head down in the sunshine.” 

“ We must wake him gently, if we wake him at all.” And Cary 
moved forward to him. 

As he did so, Amyas lifted his head, and turning it to right and 
left, felt round him with his sightless eyes. 

“ You have been asleep, Amyas.” 

“Have I? I have not slept back my eyes, then. Take up this 
great useless carcase of mine, and lead me home. I shall buy me a 
dog when I get to Burrough, I think, and make him tow me in a string, 
eh? So! Give me your hand. Now march! ” 

His guides heard with surprise this new cheerfulness. 

“ Thank God, sir, that your heart is so light already,” said good 
Jack; “ it makes me feel quite upraised myself, like.” 

“ I have reason to be cheerful, Sir John; I have left a heavy load 
behind me. I have been wilful, and proud, and a blasphemer, and 


597 


How Amy&s threw his sword 

swollen with cruelty and pride; and God has brought me low for it, 
and cut me off from my evil delight. No more Spaniard-hunting for 
me now, my masters. God will send no such fools as I upon His 
errands.” 

“ You do not repent of fighting the Spaniards? ” 

“ Not I: but of hating even the worst of them. Listen to me, Will 
and J ack. If that man wronged me, I wronged him likewise. I have 
been a fiend when I thought myself the grandest of men, yea, a very 
avenging angel out of heaven. But God has shown me my sin, and 
we have made up our quarrel forever.” 

“ Made it up? ” 

“ Made it up, thank God. But I am weary. Set me down a while, 
and I will tell you how it befell.” 

Wondering, they set him down upon the heather, while the bees 
hummed round them in the sun; and Amyas felt for a hand of each, 
and clasped it in his own hand, and began, — 

“ When you left me there upon the rock, lads, I looked away and out 
to sea, to get one last snuff of the merry sea-breeze, which will never 
sail me again. And as I looked, I tell you truth, I could see the water 
and the sky; as plain as ever I saw them, till I thought my sight was 
come again. But soon I knew it was not so ; for I saw more than man 
could see; right over the ocean, as I live, and away to the Spanish 
Main. And I saw Barbados, and Grenada, and all the isles that we 
ever sailed by; and La Guayra in Carraccas, and the Silla, and the 
house beneath it where she lived. And I saw him walking with her, 
on the barbecu, and he loved her then. I saw what I saw; and he loved 
her ; and I say he loves her still. 

“ Then I saw the cliffs beneath me, and the Gull-rock, and the 
Shutter, and the Ledge; I saw them, William Cary, and the weeds 
beneath the merry blue sea. And I saw the grand old galleon, Will; 
she has righted with the sweeping of the tide. She lies in fifteen 
fathoms, at the edge of the rocks, upon the sand; and her men are all 
lying around her, asleep until the judgment day.” 

Cary and Jack looked at him, and then at each other. His eyes were 
clear, and bright, and full of meaning; and yet they knew that he was 
blind. His voice was shaping itself into a song. Was he inspired? 
Insane? What was it? And they listened with awe-struck faces, 
as the giant pointed down into the blue depths far below, and went on. 

“And I saw him sitting in his cabin, like a valiant gentleman of 
Spain; and his officers were sitting round him, with their swords upon 


598 


Westward Ho I 

the table, at the wine. And the prawns and the crayfish and the 
rockling, they swam in and out above their heads : but Don Guzman 
he never heeded, but sat still, and drank his wine. Then he took a 
locket from his bosom; and I heard him speak, Will, and he said: 
‘Here’s the picture of my fair and true lady; drink to her, Senors 
all/ Then he spoke to me, Will, and called me, right up through the 
oar-weed and the sea: 4 We have had a fair quarrel, Senor; it is time 
to be friends once more. My wife and your brother have forgiven me; 
so your honor takes no stain/ And I answered, 4 We are friends, 
Don Guzman; God has judged our quarrel, and not we/ Then he 
said, 4 1 sinned, and I am punished/ And I said, ‘And, Senor, so 
am 1/ Then he held out his hand to me, Cary; and I stooped to take 
it, and awoke.” 

He ceased: and they looked in his face again. It was exhausted, 
but clear and gentle, like the face of a new-born babe. Gradually his 
head dropped upon his breast again ; he was either swooning or sleep- 
ing, and they had much ado to get him home. There he lay for eight 
and forty hours, in a quiet doze; then arose suddenly, called for food, 
ate heartily, and seemed, saving his eyesight, as whole and sound as 
ever. The surgeon bade them get him home to Northam as soon as 
possible, and he was willing enough to go. So the next day the 
V engeance sailed, leaving behind a dozen men to seize and keep in the 
Queen’s name any goods which should be washed up from the wreck. 





CHAPTER XJQCTU. 

How Ajnyas let the apple fall. 

“Would you hear a Spanish lady, 

How she woo’d an Englishman? 

Garments gay and rich as may be, 

Deck’d with jewels, had she on.” 

Elizabethan Ballad. 

It was the first of October. The morning was bright and still; 
the skies were dappled modestly from east to west with soft gray 
autumn cloud, as if all heaven and earth were resting after those fear- 
ful summer months of battle and of storm. Silently, as if ashamed 
and sad, the V engeance slid over the bar, and passed the sleeping sand- 
hills and dropped her anchor off Appledore, with her flag floating 
half-mast high; for the corpse of Salvation Yeo was on board. 

A boat pulled off from the ship, and away to the western end of the 
strand; and Cary and Brimblecombe helped out Amyas Leigh, and 
led him slowly up the hill toward his home. 

The crowd clustered round him, with cheers and blessings, and sobs 
of pity from kind-hearted women; for all in Appledore and Bideford 
knew well by this time what had befallen him. 

“ Spare me, my good friends,” said Amyas, “ I have landed here 
that I might go quietly home, without passing through the town, and 
being made a gazing-stock. Think not of me, good folks, nor talk of 
me ; but come behind me decently, as Christian men, and follow to the 
grave the body of a better man than I.” 

And, as he spoke, another boat came off, and in it, covered with the 
flag of England, the body of Salvation Yeo. 

The people took Amyas at his word; and a man was sent on to 
Burrough to tell Mrs. Leigh that her son was coming. When the 
coffin was landed and lifted, Amyas and his friends took their places 
behind it as chief mourners, and the crew followed in order, while the 
crowd fell in behind them, and gathered every moment; till ere they 
were half-way to Northam town, the funeral train might number full 
five hundred souls. 


600 


Westward Ho ! 

They had sent over by a fishing-skiff the day before to bid the sexton 
dig the grave; and when they came into the churchyard, the parson 
stood ready waiting at the gate. 

Mrs. Leigh stayed quietly at home; for she had no heart to face the 
crowd; and though her heart yearned for her son, yet she was well 
content (when was she not content?) that he should do honor to his 
ancient and faithful servant; so she sat down in the bay-window, with 
Ayacanora by her side; and when the tolling of the bell ceased, she 
opened her Prayer-book, and began to read the Burial-service. 

“Ayacanora,” she said, “ they are burying old Master Yeo, who 
loved you, and sought you over the wide, wide world, and saved you 
from the teeth of the crocodile. Are you not sorry for him, child, that 
you look so gay to-day! ” 

Ayacanora blushed, and hung down her head; she was thinking of 
nothing, poor child, but Amyas. 

The Burial-service was done; the blessing said; the parson drew 
back : but the people lingered and crowded round to look at the coffin, 
while Amyas stood still at the head of the grave. It had been dug, 
by his command, at the west end of the church, near by the foot of the 
tall gray wind-swept tower, which watches for a beacon far and wide 
over land and sea. Perhaps the old man might like to look at the sea, 
and see the ships come out and in across the bar, and hear the wind, 
on winter nights, roar through the belfry far above his head. Why 
not? It was but a fancy: and yet Amyas felt that he too should like 
to be buried in such a place; so Yeo might like it also. 

Still the crowd lingered; and looked first at the grave and then at 
the blind giant who stood over it, as if they felt, by instinct, that some- 
thing more ought to come. And something more did come. Amyas 
drew himself up to his full height, and waved his hand majestically, 
as one about to speak; while the eyes of all men were fastened on him. 

Twice he essayed to begin; and twice the words were choked upon 
his lips; and then, — 

“ Good people all, and seamen, among whom I was bred, and to 
whom I come home blind this day, to dwell with you till death — Here 
lieth the flower and pattern of all bold mariners; the truest of friends, 
and the most terrible of foes; unchangeable of purpose, crafty of coun- 
sel, and swift of execution; in triumph most sober, in failure (as God 
knows I have found full many a day) of endurance beyond mortal 
man. Who first of all Britons helped to humble the pride of the 
Spaniard at Rio de la Hacha and Nombre, and first of all sailed upon 


How Anyas let the apple tall eoi 

those South Seas, which shall be hereafter, by God's grace, as free to 
English keels as is the bay outside. Who having afterward been 
purged from his youthful sins by strange afflictions and torments un- 
speakable, suffered at the hands of the Popish enemy, learned there- 
from, my masters, to fear God, and to fear nought else; and having 
acquitted himself worthily in his place and calling as a righteous 
scourge of the Spaniard, and a faithful soldier of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, is now exalted to his reward, as Elijah was of old, in a chariot 
of fire unto heaven: letting fall, I trust and pray, upon you who are 
left behind, the mantle of his valor and his godliness, that so these 
shores may never be without brave and pious mariners, who will count 
their lives as worthless in the cause of their Country, their Bible, and 
their Queen. Amen.” 

And feeling for his companions’ hands, he walked slowly from the 
churchyard, and across the village street, and up the lane to Burrough 
gates; while the crowd made way for him in solemn silence, as for an 
awful being, shut up alone with all his strength, valor, and fame, in 
the dark prison-house of his mysterious doom. 

He seemed to know perfectly when they had reached the gates, 
opened the lock with his own hands, and went boldly forward along 
the gravel path, while Cary and Brimblecombe followed him trem- 
bling; for they expected some violent burst of emotion, either from 
him or his mother, and the two good fellows’ tender hearts were flutter- 
ing like a girl’s. Up to the door he went, as if he had seen it; felt 
for the entrance, stood therein, and called quietly, “Mother!” 

In a moment his mother was on his bosom. 

Neither spoke for a while. She sobbing inwardly, with tearless 
eyes, he standing firm and cheerful, with his great arms clasped around 
her. 

“ Mother! ” he said at last, “ I am come home, you see, because I 
needs must come. Will you take me in, and look after this useless 
carcase? I shall not be so very troublesome, mother, — shall I? ” and 
he looked down, and smiled upon her, and kissed her brow. 

She answered not a word, but passed her arm gently round his waist, 
and led him in. 

“ Take care of your head, dear child, the doors are low.” And they 
went in together. 

“ Will! Jack!” called Amyas, turning round: but the two good 
fellows had walked briskly off. 

“ I’m glad we are away,” said Cary; “ I should have made a baby of 


602 


Westward Ho ! 

myself in another minute, watching that angel of a woman. How her 
face worked and how she kept it in ! ” 

“Ah, well! ” said Jack, “ there goes a brave servant of the Queen’s 
cut off before his work was a quarter done. Heigho! I must home 
now, and see my old father, and then ” 

“And then home with me,” said Cary. “ You and I never part 
again ! We have pulled in the same boat too long, Jack ; and you must 
not go spending your prize-money in riotous living. I must see after 
you, old Jack, ashore, or we shall have you treating half the town in 
taverns for a week to come.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Cary! ” said Jack, scandalized. 

“ Come home with me, and we’ll poison the parson, and my father 
shall give you the rectory.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Cary! ” said Jack. 

So the two went off to Clovelly together that very day. 

And Amyas was sitting all alone. His mother had gone out for a 
few minutes to speak to the seaman who had brought up Amyas’s lug- 
gage, and set them down to eat and drink; and Amyas sat in the old 
bay-window, where he had sat when he was a little tiny boy, and read 
“ King Arthur,” and Fox’s “ Martyrs,” and “ The Cruelties of the 
Spaniards.” He put out his hand and felt for them; there they lay 
side by side, just as they had lain twenty years before. The window 
was open; and a cool air brought in as of old the scents of the four- 
season roses, and rosemary, and autumn gilliflowers. And there was a 
dish of apples on the table: he knew it by their smell; the very same 
old apples which he used to gather when he was a boy. He put out his 
hand, and took them, and felt them over, and played with them, just as 
if the twenty years had never been: and as he fingered them, the whole 
of his past life rose up before him, as in that strange dream which is 
said to flash across the imagination of a drowning man ; and he saw all 
the places which he had ever seen, and heard all the words which had 
ever been spoken to him — till he came to that fairy island on the Meta; 
and he heard the roar of the cataract once more, and saw the green 
tops of the palm-trees sleeping in the sunlight far above the spray, 
and stepped amid the smooth palm-trunks across the flower-fringed 
boulders, and leaped down to the gravel beach beside the pool: and 
then again rose from the fern-grown rocks the beautiful vision of Aya- 
canora — Where was she? He had not thought of her till now. How 
he had wronged her! Let be; he had been punished, and the account 
was squared. Perhaps she did not care for him any longer. Who 


603 


How Anyas let Hie apple fall 

would care for a great blind ox like him, who must be fed and tended 
like a baby for the rest of his lazy life? Tut! How long his mother 
was away ! And he began playing again with his apples, and thought 
about nothing but them, and his climbs with Frank in the orchard years 
ago. 

At last one of them slipped through his fingers, and fell on the floor. 
He stooped and felt for it: but he could not find it. Vexatious! He 
turned hastily to search in another direction, and struck his head 
sharply against the table. 

Was it the pain, or the little disappointment? or was it the sense of 
his blindness brought home to him in that ludicrous commonplace way, 
and for that very reason all the more humiliating? or was it the sudden 
revulsion of overstrained nerves, produced by that slight shock? Or 
had he become indeed a child once more? I know not; but so it was, 
that he stamped on the floor with pettishness, and then checking him- 
self, burst into a violent flood of tears. 

A quick rustle passed him; the apple was replaced in his hand, and 
Ayacanora’s voice sobbed out, 

“ There ! there it is ! Do not weep ! Oh, do not weep ! I cannot 
bear it ! I will get you all you want ! Only let me fetch and carry for 
you, tend you, feed you, lead you, like your slave, your dog! Say that 
I may be your slave! ” and falling on her knees at his feet, she seized 
both his hands, and covered them Avith kisses. 

“Yes! ” she cried, “ I will be your slave! I must be! You cannot 
help it! You cannot escape from me now! You cannot go to sea! 
You cannot turn your back upon wretched me. I have you safe now! 
Safe! ” and she clutched his hands triumphantly. “Ah! and what a 
wretch I am, to rejoice in that! to taunt him with his blindness! Oh, 
forgive me! I am but a poor wild girl — a wild Indian savage, you 
know: but — but ” and she burst into tears. 

A great spasm shook the body and soul of Amyas Leigh; he sat 
quite silent for a minute, and then said, solemnly — 

“And is this still possible? Then God have mercy upon me a 
sinner!” 

Ayacanora looked up in his face inquiringly: but before she could 
speak again, he had bent down, and lifting her as the lion lifts the 
lamb, pressed her to his bosom, and covered her face with kisses. 

The door opened. There was the rustle of a gown; Ayacanora 
sprang from him with a little cry, and stood, half trembling, half defi- 
ant, as if to say — “ He is mine now; no one dare part him from me! ” 


604 


Westward Ho S 

“ Who is it? ” asked Amyas. 

“ Your mother.” 

“You see that I am bringing forth fruits meet for repentance, 
mother,” said he, with a smile. 

He heard her approach. Then a kiss and a sob passed between the 
women; and he felt Ayacanora sink once more upon his bosom. 

“Amyas, my son,” said the silver voice of Mrs. Leigh, low, dreamy, 
like the far-off chimes of angels’ bells from out the highest heaven; 
“ Fear not to take her to your heart again; for it is your mother who 
has laid her there.” 

“ It is true after all,” said Amyas to himself. “ What God has 
joined together, man cannot put asunder.” 

******* 

From that hour Ayacanora’s power of song returned to her; and 
day by day, year after year, her voice rose up within that happy home, 
and soared, as on a skylark’s wings, into the highest heaven, bearing 
with it the peaceful thoughts of the blind giant back to the Paradises 
of the West, in the wake of the heroes who from that time forth sailed 
out to colonize another and a vaster England, to the heaven-prospered 
cry of Westward-Ho! 



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